.  .     •.  '.  '  :  •  '  : 


LIBRARY 


o2j> 

TJX 


presented  to  the 

LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  •  SAN  DIEGO 

by 
FRIENDS  OF  THE  LIBRARY 


MR.   JOHN  C.   ROSE 

donor 


•JIM  uNi  . 

UN*V€RS1TY  Cf  CAL.ro*NIA,  SAN  DtKSQ 
IA  JQUA,  CAUFORNU 

TURNING-POINTS 


IN   LIFE. 


BY  THE 


REV.  FREDERICK   ARNOLD,  B.A. 

_/  L/ 

CHRIST  CHURCH,  OXFORD. 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN  SQUARE. 


TO 

HENRY    WILMOTT,   ESQ. 

OF   HATHERLEY   LAWN,  CHELTENHAM. 


MY  DEAR  WILMOTT, — I  ask  your  acceptance  of  this  little 
work  in  the  recollection  of  many  pleasant  hours  spent  at 
Hatherley  Lawn,  and  of  the  kindness,  sympathy,  friendship, 
and  hospitality  accorded  to  me  there.  You  will,  I  am  sure, 
overlook  its  many  imperfections  in  its  attempt  to  promote 
those  supreme  objects  which  are  dear  to  the  hearts  of  all 
Christian  people. 

Yours  ever, 

FREDERICK  ARNOLD. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

OF  TURNING-POINTS  IN   LIFE. 

General  Aspect  of  the  Subject. — Confessions  on  Retrospects  of  Life. — Moral 
Laws  of  Human  Life. — Turning-points  in  Life  are  not  Arbitrary. — To  a 
large  extent  they  are  determined  by  the  Force  of  Antecedent  Events ; 
so-called  Fortuitous  Events  are  only  such  in  a  Limited  Sense.— The 
Doctrine  of  Providence  in  the  Incidents  of  Life. — Turning-points  in 
Literature  and  Science. — The  Moral  and  Religious  Aspect  of  the  Sub- 
ject   Page  9 

CHAPTER  II. 

HABIT. 

Habit  really  determines  the  Character  of  the  Leading  Events  of  Life. — No 
Chance  is  useful  to  the  Man  who  is  unable  to  avail  himself  of  the  Chance. 
— The  Habits  of  Youth  tinge  all  Subsequent  History. — The  Laws  of 
Habit. — Inherited  and  Transmitted  Habit. — Atavism. — The  Tyranny  of 
Habit.— The  Substitute  of  Habit 27 

CHAPTER  III. 

CRITICAL  MOMENTS  IN   LIFE. 

Turning-points  which  are  "  Moments"  in  Life,  and  Points  of  Departure 
for  a  New  Phase  of  Existence. — A  Sudden  Choice  is  often  a  Foregone 
Conclusion. — Some  Examples  in  Art ;  in  Education. — Bishop  Cotton 
and  the  two  Newmans. — What  is  called  "  Luck"  is  often  simply  the  Re- 
sult of  Skill  and  Energy. — Supreme  Moral  and  Spiritual  Moments  in 
Life. — The  Recollection  of  Special  Days  in  Life. — An  important  Ten 
Minutes ;  the  Story  of  General  Beckwith 43 

CHAPTER  IV. 

UNIVERSITY  CAREERS. 

The  University  Career  a  Special  Epoch  to  a  large  Proportion  of  Culti- 
vated Men. — This  will  be  increasingly  the  case  in  the  Progress  of  Uni- 
yersity  Extension. — Different  Views  of  University  Careers. — Doubtful 


vi  CONTENTS. 


Destinies  of  College  Dons. — The  Differences  between  Oxford  and 
Cambridge. — Mr.  Maurice,  Mr.  Kingsley,  and  M.  Taine. — The  Univer- 
sities should  bring  home  Education  to  the  Poorest. — The  Connection 
between  Common  Education  and  University  Education  .  .  Page  69 

CHAPTER  v. 

ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  A   PROFESSION. 

Survey  of  the  Professions. — For  most  of  them  Conduct  is  required  rather 
than  Cleverness. — The  Church  and  the  Dissenting  Ministry. — The  Bar,  its 
Delays  and  its  Chances. — Morality  of  Advocacy. — St.  Augustine's  Opin- 
ion.— The  Medical  Profession. — The  Scholastic  Profession. — The  Civil 
Service. — Army  and  Navy. — People  with  Leisure. — Philanthropy. — 
Edward  Denison. — The  Need  of  Divine  Guidance  ....  89 

CHAPTER  VI. 
TAKING  HOLY  ORDERS. 

How  Men  obtain  Livings. — Anecdotes  of  Chancellors. — The  Process  of 
Institution. — Letter  of  an  Old  Clergyman  to  a  Young  Man  thinking  of 
Entering  the  Church 116 

CHAPTER  VII. 

MARRIAGE. 

The  Argument  for  Arranged  Marriages. — Case  of  Bishop  Hall. — Schlegel's 
Philosophy  of  the  Subject. — Restraint  of  Marriage. — The  Language  of 
St.  Paul  on  Marriage. — Jeremy  Taylor. — Too  much  Stress  laid  upon  Pe- 
cuniary Considerations  and  too  little  on  more  important  Considerations. 
— Gothe's  Marriage  ;  Hugh  Miller's ;  Henry  Venn  Elliott's. — Lord 
Aberdeen  on  Marriage. — Bishop  Dupanloup  on  Marriage  .  .  128 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

TRAVEL. 

Foreign  Travel  often  a  Turning-point  in  Life. — Salutary  Effects  of  Travel. 
— On  doing  at  Rome  as  the  Romans  do. — The  Effect  of  Association. 
—The  Effect  of  Feeling.— English  Travel.— The  Religious  Use  of 
Travel  .  145 

CHAPTER  IX. 

LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART. 

On  Honest  Hard  Work. — Literary  Life.— Early  Efforts. — The  Struggles  of 
Great  Painters.— Michael  Angelo.— The  late  Mr.  Maclise.— The  Youth 
of  Pascal. — Moments  of  Scientific  History. — Newton's  Uncertainty  re- 


CONTENTS.  vii 


specting  the  Doctrine  of  Gravitation. — Sir  Charles  Bell. — Goodsir,  the 
Anatomist. — Pall  Mall  Gazette  quoted. — Sketch  of  the  late  Professor 
Henslow. — Henslow  at  Buckingham  Palace. — His  Death. — Sketch  of 
Mr.  Brunei. — Schlegel  on  Faith  as  determining  Discovery  .  Page  162 

CHAPTER  X. 

SUCCESSFUL  LAWYERS. 

Historical  Roll  of  our  Great  Lawyers. — Sir  William  Grant — Lord  Stowell. 
— Pemberton  Leigh. — Lord  Redesdale. — Character  of  English  Law. — 
Sketch  of  the  Career  of  Lord  Tenterden. — Turning-points  in  his  Life. — 
Judge  Buller. — The  Lessons  of  a  Representative  Career  like  Lord  Ten- 
terden's 191 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE  CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT. 

Greatness  of  English  Commerce. — The  Consecration  of  Trade. — The  The- 
ory of  making  the  Best  of  Both  Worlds. — The  Brothers  Cheeryble. — 
Jonas  Hanway. — Joshua  Watson. — William  Cotton  .  .  .  209 

CHAPTER  XII. 
RISING  MEN. 

How  we  see  Men  Rise. — The  Rise  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  mere 
Luck. — Rise  through  the  Knowledge  of  Foreign  Languages. — How  God 
helps  those  who  help  themselves. — The  Founders  of  the  Houses  of 
Normanby,  Lansdowne,  and  Belper. — The  Happiness  of  Striving. — Con- 
cerning Men  who  have  striven  in  a  Good  Cause. — The  Clapham  Set. — 
The  Necessity  of  Patience. — The  Misfortunes  of  Prosperous  Men  ;  Pitt, 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  Campbell,  Alexander  Dumas,  Voltaire. — The  Epitaphs 
of  the  Hallam  Family 225 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

STATESMEN. 

Great  Statesmen  create  the  Turning-points  of  History. — Turning-points  in 
the  Lives  of  Pitt  and  Fox. — Possible  Retribution  on  Pitt  and  Dundas. — 
Earl  Russell's  Opinions. — Sketch  of  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis. — The 
Story  of  the  Fall  of  Clarendon 252 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

TURNING-POINTS  IN  NATIONAL  HISTORY. 

Decisive  Battles  from  Marathon  to  Waterloo. — The  Franco- Prussian  War. 
— Discovery  of  America  probably  caused  by  Observation  of  a  Flock  of 


vlii  CONTENTS. 

Parrots. — The  Ifs  of  History. — Possible  Fortunes  of  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots. — The  Monotony  of  History. — The  Education  of  the  World. — The 
First  Napoleon. — The  Historical  Parallels  of  1814  and  1870. — The  Story 
of  the  Capture  and  Escape  of  Marlborough  ....  Page  278 

CHAPTER  XV. 

FORCE  OF  ADVERSE  CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Digression  on  the  Slang  Term  of  "  Going  to  the  Bad." — Vast  Number  of 
Instances  in  which  Young  Men  are  ruined  by  their  own  Misconduct. — 
Cases  of  Unavoidable  Misfortune. — People  ruined  by  Prosperity. — The 
Hopes  of  the  Hopeless. — Remedial  Character  of  Suffering  .  .  300 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

THEORIES    OF    LIFE. 

Men  consciously  or  unconsciously  construct  Theories  of  Life. — They  fall 
back  on  a  Moral  Basis  for  their  Actions. — The  Fundamental  Question 
of  Belief  or  Unbelief. — Citations  from  Mr.  Palgrave  and  Professor 
Shairp. — Theory  of  Mr.  Huxley. — Theory  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold.— The 
Philosophy  of  Gothe  and  Shakespeare. — Tennyson's  "  Palace  of  Art." 
— Human  Conduct  at  the  Probable  End  of  the  World. — The  Con- 
fessions of  Novelists  respecting  their  Ideal  of  Life. — The  Doctrine  of 
Providence  in  Life. — Bishop  Coplestone  and  Principal  Shairp  .  309 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE. 

Defect  in  Popular  Theological  Teaching  respecting  Philosophy  of  Life. — 
The  Plan  of  Life. — The  Writings  of  Bishop  Dupanloup. — Men  should 
select  a  Special  Vocation. — The  Ars  Vivendi  ....  326 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

LIFE,  A  SCHOOL  OF  FACULTIES  TO  BE  TRAINED. 

Life  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  State  of  Education. — Human  Life  probably  the 
Ground- work  of  Eternal  Life. — Beauty  and  Meaning  of  Human  Life  .  335 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

PATIENT  CONTINUANCE  IN  WELL-DOING. 

Patience  the  Test  of  Life.— It  is  Constant,  Equable,  Impartial.— Well- 
doing in  respect  to  Children,  the  Poor,  and  the  Duties  of  Life. — Love, 
Faith,  Hope. — The  Supreme  Turning-point  o'f  Life  .  .  .  350 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Introductory  Thoughts. 

ANY  one  who  has  arrived  at  that  era  of  his  own  history  in 
which  Memory  more  than  Hope  governs  the  horizon  of  human 
life — who  analyzes  the  motives  and  muses  on  the  events  of 
his  own  life-story,  and  who  learns  to  watch  with  intense  hu- 
man interest  that  drama  of  life  which  day  by  day  is  unfolding 
in  all  the  relationships  that  surround  him — will,  I  think,  under- 
stand the  title  of  this  work,  and  the  line  of  thought  indicated 
by  the  phrase.  There  are,  unquestionably,  "turning-points" 
both  in  the  history  of  the  race  and  in  the  history  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Such  are  the  great  battles,  the  great  revolutions,  the 
great  discoveries  of  history.  Each  art,  each  science,  has  its 
"turning-points" — its  moments.  Such  are  evermore  to  be 
found  in  the  lives  of  individuals.  These  turning-points  are 
not  mere  accidents.  They  have  generally  a  moral  significance, 
and  are  fraught  with  special  lessons. 

In  what  men  regard  as  mere  chance-work  there  is  often  or- 
der and  design.  What  we  call  a  "  turning-point"  is  simply  an 
occasion  which  sums  up  and  brings  to  a  result  previous  train- 
ing. Accidental  circumstances  are  nothing  except  to  men  who 
have  been  trained  to  take  advantage  of  them.  For  instance, 
Erskine  made  himself  famous  when  the  chance  came  to  him 
of  making  a  great  forensic  display,  but  unless  he  had  trained 
himself  for  the  chance,  the  chance  would  only  have  made  him 

A2 


I0  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

ridiculous.  A  great  occasion  is  worth  to  a  man  exactly  what 
his  antecedents  have  enabled  him  to  make  of  it. 

Next,  the  realm  of  the  fortuitous  is  also  the  domain  of  Prov- 
idence. The  subject  is  Difficult  enough,  but  some  principles 
seem  perfectly  clear :  that  the  universe  is  not  bereft  of  the  fa- 
therhood of  God ;  that  as  the  child  is  trained  and  directed 
aright  by  its  father,  so,  with  the  education  of  the  individual,  the 
education  of  the  world  is  progressively  carried  on.  The  world 
is  given  to  man  that  he  may  conquer  and  subdue  it ;  the  world 
is  the  appointed  theatre  for  the  exercise  of  his  intelligence  and 
his  energies.  We  may  expect  that  the  providence  of  God  will 
interpose  at  critical  conjunctures  to  favor  the  ends  which  he  de- 
signed. That  general  training  which  is  afforded  to  the  facul- 
ties with  which  we  are  endowed  seems  subordinated  through 
the  events  of  life  to  a  law  within  the  law,  to  a  life  beyond  the 
life. 

Every  life  as  it  unrolls  has  its  turning-points — its  critical  mo- 
ments. Among  these  turning-points  there  is  often  one  that 
constitutes  the  crisis  of  being.  School,  college,  business, 
friendship,  love,  accidents,  deaths,  may  all  prove  such  to  us. 
None  the  less  are  our  schemes,  our  chances,  or  our  mistakes 
and  disappointments.  There  comes  also  a  great  spiritual  crisis 
to  which  ordinary  life  is  related,  either  as  the  preparation  or 
the  result.  In  looking  at  the  governing  facts  of  individual  hu- 
man history  there  are  certain  distinctions  which  require  to  be 
carefully  drawn.  We  may  see  that  in  the  moral  world  there 
are  laws  as  certain  as  the  laws  of  the  material  world.  We  see 
that  courage,  energy,  enterprise,  good  faith,  kindness,  are  truly 
fertile  with  results  and  with  rewards.  These  indicate  the  or- 
dinary modes  by  which  our  turning-points  in  life  are  affected. 
Beyond  this  there  is  the  vague,  vast  chapter  of  incident,  that 
seems  capricious,  but  is  probably  an  ordered  plan.  Taking  a 
larger  field  of  vision,  we  see  that  this  present  life  can  not  be 


INTRODUCTORY  THOUGHTS. 


understood  without  reference  to  supernatural  facts  and  an- 
other life.  Those  who  have  achieved  the  most  for  our  race, 
or  have  struggled  to  attain  the  loftiest  ideal  of  character  for 
themselves,  have  often  fallen  in  the  conflict.  Their  story  is 
taken  up  and  finished  in  the  life  beyond.  The  banner  of  hu- 
manity, soiled  and  torn  here,  will  be  planted  in  triumph  on  a 
happier  shore. 

Let  me  endeavor,  at  greater  length,  to  work  out  this  line  of 
discussion. 

A  man  must  have  some  self-knowledge,  some  self-insight, 
before  he  can  dispassionately  review  his  own  history.  A 
man  can  not  see  his  blunders  while  he  is  playing  his  game  ; 
but  when  the  game  is  very  nearly  over  he  can  see  little  else 
except  his  blunders.  And  yet  he  may  have  played  a  very 
fair  game  after  all.  And  it  is  a  truth  in  military  science  that 
no  battle  is  fought  without  blunders,  and  the  goodness  of  gen- 
eralship practically  consists  in  the  comparative  fewness  of 
blunders.  It  is  very  touching  to  see  such  renowned  states- 
men as  Earl  Russell  and  the  late  Sir  James  Graham  —  men 
who  zealously  contended  during  their  political  career  for  the 
absolute  indefeasibiliry  of  their  conduct  —  as  the  shadows 
darken,  confess  candidly  the  number  and  greatness  of  their 
blunders.  And  if  calm,  meditative  introspection  is  rare,  it  is 
something  still  more  difficult  to  understand  others,  to  do  just- 
ice to  them,  to  "put  yourself  in  his  place,"  to  forget  rivalries 
and  feuds  in  sympathy  and  appreciation.  Really  to  do  so  is 
a  mixed  moral  and  intellectual  achievement  of  a  somewhat 
high  order.  '•  There  are  certain  stages  of  growth  before  a  man 
can  do  this.  First  of  all,  man  has  the  sense  of  novelty,  the 
desire,  ever  unsatisfied,  to  see,  or  hear,  or  do  something  fresh. 
Then  intelligent  admiration  succeeds  the  mere  sense  of  won- 
der. Men  desire  to  have  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  that  per- 
vade the  world  of  matter  and  the  world  of  mind  around  them. 


12  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

Then  comes,  higher  still,  I  think,  in  the  scale,  the  faculty  that 
interests  man  in  the  human  interests  that  surround  him.  On 
the  intellectual  side  this  faculty  enables  him  to  grasp  by  men- 
tal acts  the  shifting  panorama  of  history  and  the  poetry  and 
passion  of  life,  and  on  the  moral  side  it  gives  him  sympathy 
and  gumption,  and  the  desire  to  act  justly,  charitably,  and 
purely — with  the  practical  wish  to  do  all  the  good  he  can  in 
all  the  ways  he  can  to  all  the  people  he  can. 

Besides  this  conscious  feeling  of  having  blundered,  and  the 
wholesome  humility  such  a  feeling  should  inspire,  there  will 
ensue  on  any  such  retrospect  the  feeling  that  there  have  been 
great  "  turning-points  in  life."  Some  of  these  blunders  will 
certainly  be  connected  with  some  of  these  turning-points,  and 
some  of  these  turning-points  will  connect  themselves  with  the 
very  reverse  of  blunders,  that  is,  with  what  has  been  best  and 
worthiest  in  our  imperfect  lives.  But  many  of  them  will  be 
odd,  strange,  inexplicable.  After  eliminating  all  that  can  be 
explained  as  the  legitimate  results  of  certain  practical  lines 
of  conduct,  it  is  still  remarkable  how  large  a  realm  in  human 
life  is  occupied  by  what  is  simply  and  absolutely  fortuitous. 
And  this  presence  of  chance  can  not  really  be  a  matter  of 
chance.  So  far  from  that,  it  is,  I  believe,  part  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  things  under  which  we  live.  Just  as  we  live  in  an  or- 
der of  nature,  where  the  seasons  succeed  each  other,  not  in 
mere  arithmetical  order,  but  in  all  sweet  variety,  so  events  do 
not  succeed  each  other  according  to  a  clearly  defined  system 
of  causation,  but  with  a  liability  to  the  constant  recurrence  of 
what  is  accidental  and  fortuitous.  Probably  all  the  phenom- 
ena of  human  life,  as  of  nature,  are  referable  to  law ;  but  still 
it  would  be  wearisome  work  to  us,  constituted  as  we  are,  to 
watch  all  the  unvaried  sequences  of  order.  Instead  of  that 
we  only  dimly  see  the  vague  skirts,  the  vast  shadowy  forms  of 
such  laws,  and  most  things  below  the  skies  remain  as  uncer- 


INTRODUCTORY  THOUGHTS. 


tain,  uncertified,  transitory  as  the  skies  themselves.  And  this 
weird,  fortuitous  realm  is  doubtless  ordered  for  the  best,  and 
is  no  mystery  to  the  great  Lawgiver,  although  his  laws  are  in- 
explicable to  us,  and  are  to  us  as  confused  as  the  rush  and 
roar  of  complicated  machinery  when  first  from  the  sweet  South 
we  enter  the  grim  establishments  of  those  masterful  Northern 
manufacturers. 

As  I  have  been  speaking  of  the  fortuitous,  let  us  mark  off 
clearly  a  set  of  cases  peculiarly  likely  to  be  confounded  with 
it.  A  man  finds  a  watch  upon  the  ground.  This  was  Paley's 
famous  illustration,  which  has  a  regular  pedigree  in  the  his- 
tory of  literature.  To  employ  this  used-up  ideological  watch 
once  more,  it  is  by  no  means  a  fortuitous  event,  whether  the 
man  seeks  to  restore  the  watch  to  its  owner  or  forthwith  ap- 
propriates the  same.  To  one  man  the  watch  will  be  an  over- 
mastering temptation,  and  he  will  pocket  it ;  to  another  the 
watch  will  be  destitute  of  the  least  power  of  exciting  tempta- 
tion, and  he  would  immediately  deposit  it  with  the  town  crier. 
The  result,  in  either  case,  is  simply  the  result  of  a  man's  dis- 
position, character,  and  antecedent  history.  The  same  sort 
of  thing  happens  under  much  more  difficult  and  complicated 
circumstances.  A  man  makes  a  certain  decision,  and  in  af- 
ter-life he  is  spoken  of  as  having  made  such  a  very  wise  or 
unwise  decision ;  or  it  is  said  that  in  a  certain  emergency  he 
acted  with  such  vigor,  or  promptness,  or  justness,  or  the  re- 
verse. Now  what  I  wish  to  deny  altogether  is  the  apparently 
fortuitous  character  of  such  transactions.  The  whole  pre- 
vious life,  so  to  speak,  had  been  a  preparation  for  that  partic- 
ular minute  of  momentous  action.  It  was  a  sum,  duly  cast 
up,  giving  the  result  in  particular  figures.  The  practical  force 
of  these  considerations  is  evident.  A  man  is  dismissed  his 
ship  for  drunkenness.  It  seems  a  sharp  penalty.  Yes,  but 
the  intoxication  was  not  a  fortuitous  event.  There  must  have 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


been  a  crescendo  series  of  ungentlemanly  acts  culminating  in 
this  punishable  misdemeanor.  A  woman  runs  away  with  her 
groom  ;  but  what  a  progressive  debasement  of  heart  and  mind 
there  must  have  been  before  all  culture  and  gentle  associa- 
tions are  forgotten !  A  man  is  convicted  of  a  criminal  of- 
fense at  the  bar  of  some  tribunal.  There  are  a  crowd  of  wit- 
nesses to  character.  He  has  not  a  witness  who  would  have 
thought  him  capable  of  such  an  act.  Yet  his  mind  had  been 
familiarized  with  such  acts,  and  probably  his  practice  with 
acts  only  just  evading  the  character  of  transgression  against 
positive  law.  It  often  happens,  also,  that  extenuating  circum- 
stances are,  in  truth,  aggravating  circumstances.  And  this 
may  suggest  a  consideration  on  the  character  of  scruples. 
Bishop  Temple  has  a  sermon  on  the  subject,  and  when  I 
read  it — and  also  when  I  heard  it  preached  by  one  of  his  ad- 
mirers as  his  own — I  thought  the  treatment  very  unsatisfac- 
tory. Scruples  are  often  tedious,  tiresome  things,  mere  mat- 
ters of  anise  and  cummin.  And  yet,  though  their  absolute 
importance  may  be  little,  to  some  minds  their  relative  im- 
portance is  very  great.  Scruples  are  often  the  advanced  out- 
posts of  conscience.  Sometimes  they  are  outposts  which  com- 
mand the  citadel.  When  the  outposts  fall,  one  by  one,  there 
is  often  no  use  at  all  in  defending  the  city.  The  lines  are 
drawn  round  it,  and  it  must  fall.  Which  things  are  an  alle- 
gory. As  consequences  have  their  antecedents,  so  apparent- 
ly fortuitous  acts  have  their  anterior  order. 

When,  therefore,  I  speak  of  turning-points  in  life,  I  mean, 
first,  those  events  which  undoubtedly  have  a  fortuitous  char- 
acter, though  this  is  perhaps  more  apparent  that  real ;  and 
next,  those  events  which,  though  they  may  seem  fortuitous, 
are  distinctly  nothing  of  the  sort ;  and  thirdly,  thoses  stages 
and  crises  in  individual  history  when  a  man,  nolens  volens,  is 
obliged  to  take  his  line,  and  when  not  to  take  a  line  is  the 


INTRODUCTORY   THOUGHTS. 


most  distinct  line  of  all,  i.e.,  whether  a  man  will  get  married, 
or  take  to  a  profession,  or  practically  decides  that  he  will  not 
marry  and  will  not  take  to  a  profession.  In  human  history, 
from  time  to  time,  these  turning-points  emerge.  Men  tell  us 
so,  and  we  see  it.  We  all  know  how  Shakespeare  says  that 
there  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men,  which,  taken  at  the  flood, 
leads  on  to  fortune.  That  turning  of  the  tide  is  frequently 
dramatic  or  even  tragic  enough.  So  we  have  heard  of  per- 
sons cut  off  by  the  tide  and  left  stranded  on  some  rock  out  at 
sea.  The  hungry,  crawling  foam  reaches  the  feet,  the  knees, 
the  loins,  the  breast,  the  lips.  There  is  the  death-agony  of 
apprehension.  Then  suddenly  the  water  recedes.  It  is  the 
turn  of  the  tide.  The  romance  is  told  of  such  unlooked-for 
safety,  but  those  erect  no  tablets  who  perish.  We  sometimes 
see  something  analogous  to  this  in  life.  Once  nothing  suc- 
ceeded, but  now  every  thing  turns  to  gold.  Once  they  drew 
all  blanks,  now  the  prizes  are  all  before  them.  As  the  Yan- 
kee parson  said,  "  So  mote  it  be." 

Sometimes  circumstances  purely  fortuitous  have  colored 
and  influenced  a  whole  lifetime.  I  have  met  with  two  in- 
stances of  this  in  my  recent  reading.  The  other  day  I  was 
within  a  magnificent  library — a  library  that  belonged  to  one 
of  the  greatest  scholars  that  England  has  ever  known.  I 
took  down  a  tall  thick  folio,  bound  in  vellum — such  books 
with  such  coverings  its  owner  loved — and  opened  the  volume 
of  Justin  Martyr  which  contained  the  dialogue  with  Trypho. 
I  read  that  remarkable  passage  in  which  Justin  recounts  to 
his  chance  companions  the  truest  and  strangest  of  all  pas- 
sages of  his  history.  One  day  he  had  been  musing  on  the 
sea-shore,  when  he  was  accosted  by  an  aged  and  benevolent 
stranger,  who  ventured  to  ask  him  the  nature  of  his  medita- 
tions. Justin  explained  to  him  how  he  was  musing  on  the 
philosophers ;  but  his  new-found  companion  asked  him  wheth- 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFR. 


er  he  knew  aught  about  the  prophets.  Then  ensued  the  con- 
versation which  determined  the  tenor  and  complexion  of  all 
Justin's  future  life.  Perhaps  some  of  us  may  have  had  such 
rare  seasons  of  converse  with  gifted  minds,  which  have  been 
as  an  open  sesame  to  open  up  whole  realms  of  thought  and 
truth  which  otherwise  might  have  eluded  our  sphere  of  ob- 
servation. I  noticed  the  other  instance  in  Mrs.  Gordon's  in- 
teresting little  book  respecting  her  illustrious  father,  Sir  Da- 
vid Brewster.  On  the  very  threshold  of  his  great  scientific 
researches  his  sight  began  to  fail  him.  He  had  every  reason 
to  fear  that  his  eyes  must  go  ;  and  in  his  case  most  earthly 
good  would  have  failed  with  his  failing  vision.  Then  some 
one  told  him  that,  for  such  cases,  the  great  surgeon,  Sir  Ben- 
jamin Brodie,  recommended  a  particular  prescription.  It 
was  a  very  simple  one,  common  snuff  being  the  chief  ingre- 
dient. He  took  it,  and  was  completely  cured.  Years  after 
Sir  David  met  Sir  Benjamin  ;  but  Sir  Benjamin  was  sur- 
prised at  the  matter,  and  said  the  prescription  was  none  of 
his. 

Now  let  us  take  some  illustrations  from  life  ;  and  truly 
that  was  a  true  saying,  that  though  arguments  are  pillars,  yet 
illustrations  are  the  windows  that  let  in  the  light. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  the  moment  in  which,  at  a  family 
conclave,  there  is  a  choice  of  school  or  college  is  a  very  im- 
portant turning-point  of  life.  It  is  remarkable  on  how  slight 
a  hinge  the  choice  turns  —  what  a  slight  impulse  settles  the 
question.  Unfortunately  the  matter  is  often  settled  the  wrong 
way.  There  are  some  boys  for  whom  the  public  school  is 
the  very  thing.  It  is  especially  the  thing  for  those  boys  who 
are  adapted  by  nature  for  our  English  public  life.  It  de- 
velops the  mind  ;  it  forms  the  manners  ;  it  carries  the  boy 
successfully  on  in  his  work  ;  it  surrounds  him  with  friends 
who  often  form  a  phalanx  around  him  on  whose  shoulders 


INTRODUCTORY  THOUGHTS. 


he  is  carried  onward  to  prosperity  and  eminence.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  are  boys  who  are  peculiarly  fitted  for 
home  education,  or  the  gentlest  training  abroad.  They  have 
delicate  flowers  of  character  and  feeling  which  would  blossom 
in  the  shade,  but  are  withered  in  the  glare  of  sunshine.  Cow- 
per's  misery  at  Westminster  has  been  often  reproduced  in  his 
sensitiveness,  if  not  in  his  genius.  I  have  a  hearty  love  of 
Eton  and  Etonians.  But  take  some  obtuse  youth  of  eighteen, 
who  has  never  received  the  individual  separate  attention  which 
he  has  required — who  has  been  slowly  shuffled  through  class 
after  class  without  attaining  to  its  level  of  attainment — on 
whom  the  distinctive  advantages  of  the  place  have  been  al- 
most altogether  thrown  away,  and  he  has  gained,  I  grant  you, 
good  manners  —  that  is  the  never -failing  acquisition  which 
Eton  always  gives  her  sons — but  otherwise  the  early  years  of 
his  life  have  been  almost  irretrievably  wasted.  He  is  just 
the  sort  of  man  on  whom  careful,  patient  training  would  have 
wrought  every  thing  that  could  be  wrought  on  a  poor  limited 
nature  ;  but  now  if  he  can  get  into  the  army  or  smuggled  into 
a  family  living,  it  is  the  only  use  to  which  he  is  susceptible 
of  being  put. 

Similarly  as  to  college.  A  man  goes  to  a  certain  college 
because  his  father  was  there  before  him,  or  because  his  uncle 
had  a  fellowship  there,  or  because  some  paltry  scholarship  is 
attached  to  his  native  county.  But  a  knowing  Cambridge  tu- 
tor would  say,  "That  is  just  the  man  for  Trinity,"  or  a  know- 
ing Oxford  tutor,  "That  is  just  the  man  for  Christ  Church,  or 
just  the  man  for  Baliol."  Why  should  you  send  a  hard-read- 
ing man  to  Exeter,  or  an  indolent,  dressy  man  to  Baliol? 
Why  should  a  gentleman  be  sent  to  the  drinking,  smoking  set 
of  a  "  fast,"  which  means  a  slow  college  ?  and  why  should  not 
some  wavering  natures  be  developed  into  something  better  by 
the  best  collegiate  influences  ?  All  over  the  world  the  square 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


peg  goes  into  the  round  hole,  and  vice  versd.  There  is  some- 
thing very  odd  about  men  at  small  colleges,  but  as  the  Trin- 
ity man  said,  according  to  Mr.  Lesiie  Stephen,  "  They,  too, 
are  God's  creatures."  ,  A  man  will  go  to  his  little  college— 
where  you  might  live  in  a  university  town  for  a  dozen  years 
without  knowing  it  —  and  like  it,  and  stand  up  for  it,  and  con- 
sider it  the  epitome  of  the  world,  as  some  Oxonians  stand  up 
for  Christ  Church  or  Baliol,  and  Cantabs  for  Trinity  and  St. 
John's. 

Let  us  now  look  at  some  instances  of  "  turning-points"  in 
our  social  life  around  us.  In  professional  life  we  often  find 
anecdotes  of  success  that  are  very  good,  and,  what  can  not  al- 
ways be  said  of  good  stories,  very  well  guaranteed.  There 
was  a  London  curate  sitting  one  day  in  his  -vestry,  very  much 
after  the  manner  of  his  order.  These  London  curates  are 
sometimes  a  sort  of  relieving  officers.  They  often  sit  an  hour 
a  day  in  the  vestry,  distributing  dispensary  tickets  or  orders  for 
soup  and  flannel,  or  writing  down  the  names  of  poor  people 
who  may  be  in  some  dire  distress,  and  on  whom  they  intend 
to  call.  If  you  want  to  have  a  five  minutes'  chat  with  this 
sort  of  parson,  you  know  when  and  where  to  find  him.  There 
came  a  tap  at  a  certain  vestry  door,  and  the  curate  shouted 
his  "  come  in,"  with  full  belief  that  there  was  another  Irish 
pauper.  A  gentleman  came  in,  who  asked  after"  the  aristo- 
cratic and  well-known  rector.  The  curate  explained  that  his 
rector  was  out  of  town,  but  that  he  himself  would  be  very 
pleased  to  do  any  thing  he  could  for  him.  The  gentleman 
hummed  and  hesitated,  but  at  last  explained  his  business.  It 
so  happened  that  he  was  the  patron  of  a  valuable  living  which 
had  just  fallen  in,  and  knowing  nothing  about  clergymen,  he 
had  called  to  ask  the  rector  whether  he  knew  any  one  on 
whom  the  presentation  would  be  fittingly  bestowed.  The  cu- 
rate was  no  fool.  A  turning-point  had  come.  He  saw  he 


INTRODUCTORY  THOUGHTS. 


had  a  chance,  and  he  took  it.  He  said  there  was  an  individ- 
ual, whom  modesty  prevented  him  from  naming,  who  was  ad- 
mirably qualified  for  a  good  living.  The  ingenuous  shame- 
facedness  was  overcome,  and  the  curate  gave  ample  evidence 
that  he  had  worked  long  and  arduously.  He  dropped  into  a 
very  good  living,  rather  to  the  disgust  of  the  rector,  who  would 
have  liked  better  to  have  given  it  to  some  of  his  own  belong- 
ings. I  remember  another  lucky  hit.  It  was  that  of  a  clergy- 
man meeting  with  a  lord  chancellor.  The  chancellor  was 
not  Lord  Hatherley,  but  it  was  a  predecessor  of  his  in  no  very 
remote  degree.  The  parson — he  was  a  tutor  at  one  of  the 
Oxford  colleges — was  a  very  early  riser,  and  so  was  the  lord 
chancellor.  It  so  happened  that  they  were  visiting  together 
at  the  same  country-house.  They  met  one  fresh  early  morn- 
ing in  the  library  when  all  the  rest  of  the  world  was  drowned 
in  sleep.  This  similarity  led  to  a  long  conversation,  in  which 
other  similarities  of  taste  and  feeling  were  developed.  The 
result  was  that  the  lord  chancellor  gave  him  a  capital  living. 
There  is  a  great  difference  among  lord  chancellors.  Such  a 
chancellor  as  Lord  Westbury  did  not  care  for  his  small  Church 
patronage,  and  brought  in  a  bill  which  enabled  him  to  get  rid 
of  it.  Other  chancellors,  however,  are  truly  "  grasping"  about 
it,  if  one  may  use  that  unpleasant  term.  The  fact  is,  chancel- 
lors ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  hold  ecclesiastical  patronage. 
Livings  are  not  the  proper  prizes  to  be  given  away  in  recol- 
lection of  electioneering  contests  or  sharp  legal  businesses. 

The  readers  of  those  somewhat  mendacious  volumes,  Lord 
Campbell's  "  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,"  will  recollect  the 
sudden,  unexpected  turns  by  which  great  lawyers  have  trod  to 
fame  and  fortune.  I  often  think  of  a  great  advocate  rising  up 
to  take  advantage  of  his  first  chance,  and  feeling  as  if  his 
wife  and  children  were  tugging  at  his  robe  and  exhorting  him 
to  do  his  best.  Then  nearly  every  doctor  in  good  practice 


20  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

has  his  story  of  days  when  he  had  no  practice  at  all,  and  of 
the  lucky  incidents  which  brought  him  into  the  notice  which 
he  deserved.  Much  may  be  said  of  various  other  pursuits  in 
life.  I  once  knew  a  man  who  got  into  Parliament  through  the 
simple  accident  of  meeting  a  man  on  the  steps  of  the  Carlton 
Club.  This  man  said  that  he  was  going  to  try  for  a  borough 
on  the  great  Buff  interest,  and  he  wanted  another  man,  a  Buff, 
like  himself,  but  a  better  talker,  to  try  along  with  him,  and  he 
would  stand  all  the  expenses.  The  two  Buffs  were  duly  re- 
turned. If  you  believe  Dr.  Johnson's  definition  of  genius — I 
don't — that  it  is  great  natural  ability  accidentally  turned  into 
a  particular  direction,  then  every  career  of  great  intellectual 
eminence  has  been  accidentally  determined  by  the  stress  of 
some  turning-point  in  life.  A  lucky  incident  determined  the 
career  of  that  great  prelate  and  acute  thinker,  Bishop  Herbert 
Marsh.  If  you  don't  know  much  about  Bishop  Marsh,  just 
turn  to  that  volume  of  the  British  Museum  library  where  his 
works  are  enrolled  ;  or,  better  still,  in  that  learned  mass  of  an- 
notation with  which  Mr.  Mayor  has  supplemented  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Baker  MS.  on  St.  John's  College.  Herbert 
Marsh  wrote  German  with  the  force  and  facility  of  a  native. 
He  published  in  that  language,  in  1800,  "The  History  of  the 
Politics  of  Great  Britain  and  France  .  .  .  containing  a  Nar- 
rative of  the  Attempt  made  by  the  British  Government  to  re- 
store Peace."  This  history  was  based  on  authentic  documents, 
which  showed  that  the  French,  and  not  the  British,  were  the 
authors  of  the  war.  Its  publication  did  our  country  a  signal 
service  at  the  time.  You  will  still  find  many  ignorant  writers 
who  insist  that  Pitt's  glorious  continental  wars  were  quite  a 
mistake,  and  altogether  unnecessary.  I  would  only  advise 
them  to  go  to  their  books  and  study  the  materials  of  authentic 
history.  Pitt  sent  for  Marsh,  and  gave  him  some  five  hundred 
a  year  until  he  should  give  him  a  bishopric.  Another  illus- 


INTRODUCTORY   THOUGHTS.  2I 

trious  Englishman  owed  his  fortune  to  that  evil  genius  of  Eu- 
rope, Napoleon.  When  that  monster  of  selfishness  and  cruel- 
ty was  caged  in  the  Bellerophon,  and  the  vessel  lay  in  Plym- 
outh Sound,  at  the  latter  end  of  that  memorable  July — oh, 
what  a  midsummer  was  that  for  our  England  ! — a  young  paint- 
er took  boat  day  by  day,  and  hovered  about  the  vessel  for  ev- 
ery glimpse  of  the  captive.  Every  evening,  about  six,  Napo- 
leon used  to  appear  on  the  gangway  and  make  his  bow  to  the 
thousands  who  came  out  to  see  him.  There  is  some  reason 
to  believe  that  Napoleon  divined  and  approved  of  the  artist's 
intention.  So  Charles  Eastlake  made  a  good  portrait,  and 
from  it  constructed  a  large  painting  of  the  emperor,  for  which 
the  gentlemen  of  Plymouth  gave  him  a  thousand  pounds,  and 
sent  him  to  Rome,  and  made  the  fortune  of  the  future  Presi- 
dent of  the  Royal  Academy. 

Marriage  is  unquestionably  as  decided  a  turning-point  in 
human  destiny  as  can  be.  It  is,  however,  a  turning-point 
which,  least  of  all,  should  be  left  to  mere  blind  chance.  Yet 
mere  blind  chance  often  rules  the  result.  Every  body  now 
recollects  how  Lord  Byron  staked  on  a  toss-up  whether  he 
should  make  his  offer  to  Miss  Milbanke  or  not.  Mr.  Grant 
asserts  that  there  is  an  English  duke  now  living,  who  wrote 
the  following  letter,  when  marquis,  to  a  friend  with  whom  he 
had  agreed  to  inspect  some  carriages  in  Long  Acre:  "'It 
will  not  be  necessary  to  meet  me  to-morrow,  to  go  to  Long 
Acre  to  look  for  a  carriage.  From  a  remark  made  by  the 
duke  [his  father]  to-day,  I  fancy  I  am  going  to  be  married.' 
Not  only  had  the  marquis  left  his  father  to  choose  a  bride  for 
him  and  to  make  the  other  necessary  matrimonial  arrange- 
ments, but  when  the  intimation  was  made  to  him  by  the  duke 
that  the  future  marchioness  had  been  fixed  on,  he  seemed  to 
view  the  whole  affair  as  if  it  had  been  one  which  did  not  con- 
cern him  in  the  least."  I  should  hope  that  sensible  men  do 


22  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

not  often  leave  the  choice  of  a  wife  to  be  determined  in  this 
indeterminate  way.  Nor  yet,  I  hope,  for  the  matter  of  that, 
the  choice  of  a  profession — more  especially  if  that  profession 
is  the  Church.  I  see  that  a  set  of  gentlemen  are  now  trying, 
vehemently,  to  release  "themselves  from  the  shackles  of  their 
ordination  vows,  and  to  a  certain  extent  have  done  so.  They 
say,  in  effect,  that  they  were  young ;  that  they  were  inexperi- 
enced ;  that  they  have  seen  what  they  have  liked  better ;  that 
they  ought  to  have  the  liberty  of  another  choice.  I  offer  no 
opinion  on  this  reasoning.  But  it  is  worth  while  to  point  out 
that  every  one  of  these  considerations  would  equally  apply  to 
a  claim  to  be  released  from  marriage.  Milton  set  forth  the 
whole  claim  in  his  "  Tetrachordon."  Yet  this  is  a  length  to 
which  any  legislature  would  decline  to  go. 

Every  now  and  then,  in  history,  or  in  the  history  of  litera- 
ture and  science,  we  find  some  striking  historical  instance  of 
turning-points  in  life.  On  such  ground  we  see  how  a  scandal 
about  a  bracelet,  or  the  prohibition  of  a  banquet,  wrought  a 
revolution  and  precipitated  a  dynasty.  Look  at  literary  or 
scientific  biography.  Think  of  Crabbe  timorously  calling  on 
Edmund  Burke,  and  inducing  him  to  look  at  his  poetry.  I 
have  no  doubt  but  Burke  was  very  busy.  But  with  lightning 
glance  he  looked  over  the  lines,  and  satisfied  himself  that  real 
genius  was  there.  When  Crabbe  left  the  statesman  he  was 
a  made  man.  Burke,  ever  generous  and  enlightened,  had 
made  up  his  mind  to  take  care  of  him.  Or  look  at  Faraday. 
He  was  only  a  poor  bookseller's  poor  boy,  working  hard  and 
honestly,  but  disliking  his  employment  and  inspired  with  a 
pure  thirst  for  knowledge.  He  had  managed,  somehow  or 
other,  to  hear  the  great  chemist,  Humphrey  Davy,  at  the  Roy- 
al Institution  ;  and,  with  trembling  solicitude,  he  sends  him  a 
fair  copy  of  the  notes  which  he  had  made  of  his  lectures.  The 
result  is  that  Michael  Faraday  receives  an  appointment  at  the 


INTRODUCTORY  THOUGHTS. 


Royal  Institution,  and  lays  the  foundation  of  his  splendid  and 
beneficent  career.  Looking  back  to  the  past,  that  was  a  great 
moment  in  the  life  of  Columbus,  when,  resting  on  a  sultry  day 
beneath  the  fierce  Spanish  sun,  he  asked  for  a  drink  of  cold 
water  at  a  convent-door.  The  prior  entered  into  a  conversa- 
tion with  him,  and — struck  by  his  appearance,  and  afterward 
by  the  magnificent  simplicity  of  his  ideas — gave  him  the  in- 
troductions he  so  sorely  needed ;  and  thus  Columbus  gave  to 
Castile  and  Aragon  a  new  world. 

And  greater  than  any  merely  national  event  of  outward 
honor  or  importance,  a  more  wondrous  turning-point  in  life  is 
that  when  some  great  thought,  some  great  discovery,  has  first 
loomed  distinctly  before  the  mind.  One  of  Mr.  Hugh  Mac- 
millan's  admirable  works  reminds  us  of  such  a  "  moment." 
Seventeen  years  ago,  late  one  afternoon,  a  hunter,  led  by  the 
chase,  came  to  a  secluded  spot  in  a  forest  on  a  slope,  four 
thousand  feet  high,  of  the  range  of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  There, 
to  his  astonishment,  he  beheld  vast  dark-red  trunks  of  trees 
rising  for  three  or  four  hundred  feet  in  the  air,  dwarfing  all 
the  surrounding  forest,  whose  tops  were  still  aglow  in  the  sun- 
set when  darkness  had  fallen  on  all  meaner  growths.  Thus 
was  discovered  the  Wellingtonea  gigantea  of  California,  the 
most  splendid  addition  of  this  generation  to  natural  history.* 
You  may  walk,  you  may  even  ride  on  horseback  through  the 
trunk  of  a  fallen  tree.  Those  alive  are  between  two  and  three 
thousand  years  old,  and  those  prostrate  may  have  lain  for 
thousands  of  years  and  have  been  thousands  of  years  old 
when  they  fell.  The  huntsman  who  first  beheld  them  has- 
tened away,  as  one  enchanted,  to  tell  the  marvelous  story, 
and  was  not  believed  until  repeated  visits  and  measurements 

*  The  Americans  don't  like  their  great  tree  being  called  the  Welling- 
tonea, and  so  they  call  it  the  Washingtonea ;  arborists  now  give  it  the 
purely  scientific  appellation  of  Sequoia  gigantea. 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


had  been  made.  There  is  an  eminent  American  writer  who 
considers  that  there  are  two  moments  which  stand  pre-emi- 
nent in  the  intellectual  history  of  our  race.  One  of  them  was 
when  Galileo  for  the  first  time  looked  through  the  first  tele- 
scope, and  the  phases  of  Venus  and  the  moons  of  Jupiter 
whispered  to  him  the  idea  of  myriad  space  peopled  with  myr- 
iads of  worlds  like  our  own.  A  second  such  "  moment"  was 
when  a  large  quantity  of  fossil  bones  and  shells  was  placed 
before  the  aged  Buffon  for  inspection.  To  his  amazement,  he 
found  that  these  remains  corresponded  with  no  known  re- 
mains of  living  creatures  of  the  earth.  In  a  moment  there 
came  before  the  old  man's  mind  the  vast  idea  of  infinite  time, 
peopled  with  other  creations  than  our  o\vn.  "  Filled  with 
awe,  the  old  man,  then  over  eighty  years  of  age,  published  his 
discovery.  In  a  kind  of  sacred  frenzy,  he  spoke  of  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  prospect,  and  prophesied  of  the  future  glories 
of  the  new  science,  which  he  was,  alas!  too  old  to  pursue." 
Only  the  other  day  we  had  a  splendid  scientific  generaliza- 
tion, which  Mr.  Charles  Kingsley  thinks  will  work  a  new  era 
in  bio-geology.  Dr.  Carpenter,  in  his  "  Report  of  the  Dredg- 
ing Operations  of  the  Lightning"  says  that  "The  globeig- 
erina  mud  is  not  merely  a  chalk  formation,  but  a  continua- 
tion of  the  chalk  formation  ;  so  that  we  may  be  said  to  be  still 
living  in  the  age  of  chalk."  Yes,  layer  by  layer,  the  live  atom- 
ies are  laying  the  floorings  of  a  new  continent,  which  we  shall 
not  see.  It  is  a  sublime  thought.  Perhaps  still  more  inter- 
esting are  his  discoveries  of  abundance  of  active  life  far  down 
in  depths  where  all  the  philosophers  had  considered  that  life 
was  impossible,  thus  checking  the  seemingly  most  final  and 
authoritative  decisions  of  science.  Well,  the  philosopher  may 
take  a  lesson,  may  take  to  heart  the  first  and  humblest  lesson 
of  science,  to  look  on  all  opinions  as  in  solution,  all  hypothe- 
ses as  tentative ;  and  if  some  of  our  scientific  luminaries  be- 


INTRODUCTORY  THOUGHTS.  25 

i 

come  a  little  more  modest  and  a  little  less  dogmatic,  it  will 
be  a  wonderful  era  in  their  own  lives  and  a  special  blessing 
to  the  meetings  of  the  British  Association. 

Then  accidents  are  turning-points,  which  may  bring  you  to 
a  sudden  pause — to  a  dead  wall.  There  are  many  accidents, 
fatal  accidents,  which,  humanly  speaking,  might  be  avoided 
by  taking  things  quietly.  For  instance,  I  almost  wish  we  had 
a  statistical  account  of  the  number  of  people  who  have  dropped 
down  dead  through  running  to  catch  the  train.  I  saw  in  a  pro- 
vincial paper  the  other  day  a  very  queer  account  of  a  man 
attending  his  own  inquest.  A  coroner's  jury  had  been  sum- 
moned to  hold  an  inquiry  respecting  the  end  of  some  deceased 
person.  One  of  the  jurymen  so  summoned  was  rather  late. 
He  and  his  fellow-jurors  were  to  meet  at  a  public-house. 
From  the  door  of  the  hostel  they  watched  him  hastening  very 
fast,  and  presently  running.  Suddenly  he  dropped.  They 
hastened  to  him,  but  found  that  life  was  altogether  extinct. 
The  coroner,  a  shrewd,  busy  man,  suggested  that  as  they  were 
all  there  it  would  be  as  well  if  they  empaneled  another  jury- 
man, and  held  both  inquests  at  the  same  sitting.  This  was 
done  ;  and  within  an  hour  or  two  of  the  poor  fellow's  proceed- 
ing to  attend  the  inquest,  an  inquest  was  held  upon  himself. 

Then  as  to  the  morality  of  our  theme.  It  was  an  old  Greek 
sophist,  Prodicus  by  name,  one  of  a  body  whom  we  think,  de- 
spite Mr.  Grote,  to  be  justly  enough  abused,  who  gave  us — 
Xenophon  tells  the  story — that  beautiful  fable  of  the  Choice 
of  Hercules,  which  has  been  repeated  in  many  forms  and  in 
many  languages.  It  has  been  beautifully  reproduced  by  Mr. 
Tennyson,  when  lone  CEnone  tells  "  many-fountained"  Ida  of 
the  choice  of  Paris,  when  he  turned  away  from  Athene*  with 
her  wisdom  to  Aphrodite'  with  her  love.  Pythagoras  took  the 
letter  Y  as  the  symbol  of  human  life : 

"  Et  tibi,  quae  Samios  diduxit  litera  ramos." — PERSIUS. 
B 


26  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

The  stem  of  the  letter  denoted  that  part  of  human  life  during 
which  character  is  still  unformed  ;  the  right-hand  branch,  the 
finer  of  the  two,  represents  the  path  of  virtue,  the  other  that 
of  vice.  As  one  of  .the  commentators  says,  "  The  fancy  took 
mightily  with  the  ancients."  There  is  a  clearly  defined  turn- 
ing-point in  life  for  you  !  Of  such  turning-points  as  I  have 
here  lightly  touched  upon,  I  shall  in  my  other  pages  endeavor 
to  give  some  sort  of  rationale.  My  thesis  is  that  most  of  them 
are  to  be  eliminated  from  the  catalogue  of  the  contingent  and 
the  accidental,  as  being  the  legitimate  effect  and  product  of 
character ;  and,  next,  admitting  the  existence  of  what  is  for- 
tuitous, I  argue  that  the  presence  of  chance  is  not  a  matter 
of  chance,  but  designed  by  the  great  Artist  who  builds  up  in- 
dividual life,  and  weaves  it  into  the  common  warp  and  woof 
of  all  human  life  around  us. 

Once  more,  to  quote  some  words  of  the  late  Dean  Alford's, 
novissima  verba  as  they  proved:  "There  are  moments  that 
are  worth  more  than  years.  We  can  not  help  it :  there  is  no 
proportion  between  spaces  of  time  in  importance  nor  in  value. 
A  sick  man  may  have  the  unwearied  attendance  of  his  physi- 
cian for  weeks,  and  then  may  perish  in  a  minute  because  he 
is  not  by.  A  stray  un-thought-of  five  minutes  may  contain 
the  event  of  a  life.  And  this  all-important  moment,  this  mo- 
ment disproportionate  to  all  other  moments,  who  can  tell  when 
it  will  be  upon  us  ?  What  a  lesson  to  have  our  resources  for 
meeting  it  available  and  at  hand  ! " 


SOME    CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABITS.  27 


CHAPTER  II. 
Some  Considerations  on  Habits. 

WHEN  we  speak  of  turning-points  in  life,  probably  the  first 
notion  suggested  is  that  of  something  merely  fortuitous  and 
accidental — some  sort  of  sparkling  incident  which  is  the  piv- 
ot of  a  romance.  There  are  such  incidents  certainly ;  one 
should  neither  deny  their  existence  nor  exaggerate  their  im- 
portance. But  of  such  incidents  habit  makes  the  most  essen- 
tial part.  Given  the  most  favorable  set  of  circumstances,  they 
are  really  nothing  unless  there  is  a  disposition  established,  a 
training  accomplished,  which  will  enable  you  to  turn  them  to 
account. 

Youth,  that  loves  adventure,  always  looks  forward  with  ea- 
ger interest  to  opening  the  great  campaign  of  life  in  London. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  streets  are  paved  with  gold  or 
even  with  costlier  things.  As  the  laureate  says : 

"  Yearning  for  the  large  excitement  that  the  coming  years  would  yield, 
Eager-hearted  as  a  boy  when  first  he  leaves  his  father's  field ; 
And  at  night  along  the  dusky  highway,  near  and  nearer  drawn, 
Sees  in  heaven  the  light  of  London  flaring  like  a  dreary  dawn ; 
And  his  spirit  leaps  within  him  to  be  gone  before  him  then, 
Underneath  the  light  he  looks  at,  in  among  the  throngs  of  men." 

In  London,  indeed,  more  than  any  where  else,  habit  is  the 
ground-work  on  which  all  the  chequered  incidents  of  life  are 
displayed. 

For  example,  take  the  stock  incident  of  the  feeble  novelist. 
A  young  lady's  horse  runs  away  with  her.  It  is  in  danger  of 


28  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

leaping  a  cliff  or  of  rushing  down  the  line  while  the  express 
rushes  after  it.  Such  an  incident  would  be  obviously  thrown 
away  upon  a  hero  who  was  not  used  to  horses,  and  who  had 
not  acquired  a  steady  eye  and  hand,  and  habits  of  coolness 
and  courage.  There  is  a  noble  house  which  traces  back  all 
its  prosperous  fortunes  to  the  incident  of  a  'prentice  lad 
plunging  into  the  Thames  to  recover  his  fair  young  mistress. 
He  married  her  and  became  partner  in  the  business  of  his 
master.  There  must  at  least  have  been  a  useful  habit  of 
swimming  before  he  could  plunge  into  the  river.  And  unless 
there  were  those  good  habits  which  the  merchants  of  London 
so  highly  prize,  he  would  not  have  gone  into  the  business,  or 
if  he  had  gone,  would  have  done  nothing  at  it. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  read  of  a  great  advocate  awaiting 
patiently  for  his  chance.  It  comes  at  last,  and  he  fancied 
that  wife  and  children  were  tugging  at  his  robe  and  exhorting 
him  for  their  sakes  to  do  his  best.  Then  the  full,  brilliant 
speech  is  made.  Or  hear  the  famous  argument  of  plain  John 
Scott,  afterward  Lord  Eldon,  in  the  leading  case  of  "  Akroyd 
v.  Smithson."  An  attorney  whispers  the  homely  but  heart- 
cheering  words,  "Young  man,  your  bread  and  butter  is  made," 
and,  indeed,  the  young  man  has  started  straight  and  fair  for 
the  Great  Seal. 

Such  incidents  do  not  happen  so  very  unfrequently  after  all. 
The  man  and  the  hour  approach.  'The  man  is  equal  to  the 
occasion  ;  but  often,  perhaps  oftener,  the  man  is  unequal  to  it. 
What  would  have  been  the  use  of  the  chance  coming  to  men 
who  are  unequal  to  the  chance?  There  are  barristers  who, 
if  such  a  chance  came  to  them,  would  simply  have  to  sit  down 
and  tell  the  sitting  judge,  truly  enough,  that  they  could  not 
get  on  without  their  leader.  The  lawyer  who  rises  to  con- 
duct a  difficult  case  in  his  leader's  absence,  the  surgeon  or 
doctor  that  has  a  sudden  chance  presented  to  him,  must  have 


SOME   CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABITS. 


29 


had  a  long  preparatory  training  before  he  could  skillfully  avail 
himself  of  any  sort  of  emergency.  These  are  occasions  for 
the  exhibition  of  ability,  and  are  powerless  to  create  the  abil- 
ity itself.  So  even  in  what  appear  to  be  fortuitous  events  the 
element  of  chance  does  not  very  much  prevail.  Good  men, 
by  a  natural  gravitation,  come  to  the  front,  and  accident,  or 
want  of  accident,  only  temporarily  retards  or  repels  them. 

So  when  a  man  looks  forward  to  his  chances  in  life,  his 
great  business  is  to  prepare  himself  for  those  chances. 

Now,  habit  is  the  subtlest  and  strongest  of  all  agencies.  It 
is  a  second  nature,  or  rather  the  mould  into  which  nature  is 
thrown.  All  the  foundation  of  character  must  be  laid  in  the 
very  earliest  days.  It  is  almost  awful  to  think  at  how  early 
an  age,  humanly  speaking,  the  destinies  of  young  children  are 
shaped  and  framed  by  their  habits ;  how  their  future  is  in 
their  own  hands ;  how,  in  Wordsworth's  phrase,  the  boy  is  fa- 
ther to  the  man.  I  believe  some  American  author  holds  that 
habits  are  formed  by  the  age  of  twelve — a  curious  theory, 
which  has  nevertheless  a  basis  of  truth. 

Childhood  is  the  secret  laboratory  where  all  manner  of  hid- 
den processes  are  being  evolved  for  development  and  perfec- 
tion hereafter.  In  Robert  Browning's  fine  poem  of  "  Laza- 
rus," the  intense  importance  of  the  actions  of  the  young  is 
shadowed  forth.  Lazarus  restored  from  the  dead  can  view 
his  child  in  illness  or  danger,  being  altogether  unperturbed. 
But  he  is  in  a  very  agony  of  sorrow  and  alarm  if  he  notices 
any  outburst  of  sin  or  selfishness.  There  is  a  very  instructive 
lesson  for  the  young  to  be  learned  from  the  Memoirs  of  Hugh 
Miller.  I  remember,  many  years  ago,  hearing  an  account  of 
a  gentleman  who,  journeying  in  a  steamer,  saw  an  unwonted 
degree  of  attention  bestowed  on  a  mason  who  was  sitting  on 
the  right  hand  of  the  captain,  and  in  whose  favor  other  people 
seemed  slighted.  When  he  learned  that  it  was  Hugh  Miller, 


30  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

and  who  Hugh  Miller  was,  he  perfectly  acquiesced  in  the  ar- 
rangement. But  Hugh  Miller  never  had  any  business  to  be 
a  stone-mason.  When  he  was  a  child  he  obstinately  refused 
to  learn,  and  played  truant  for  weeks  together.  He  became 
a  distinguished  man,  not  by  reason  of  being  a  stone-mason, 
but  in  spite  of  it.  We  are  told  that,  during  his  hard  work  in 
the  quarry  and  under  the  shed,  his  robust  constitution  was 
shaken,  and  the  seeds  of  ineradicable  disease  were  sown  in 
his  frame.  He  himself  says  that  the  obscurity  and  hardship 
of  his  working  life  were  a  "  punishment  for  his  early  careless- 
ness." Perhaps  the  dark  catastrophe  which  terminated  his 
life  might  be  traced  to  the  foolishness  of  his  boyhood.  His 
biographer,  Mr.  Bayne,  truly  remarks  :  "  To  check  the  lawless- 
ness natural  to  man,  to  break  self-will  to  the  yoke,  to  change 
the  faculties  from  a  confused  barbarian  herd  or  horde  (heer 
of  the  old  German  tribes)  into  a  disciplined  or  exercised  com- 
pany (exerdtus  of  the  Romans),  must  ever  be  an  essential  part 
of  the  training  of  youth.  Educated  human  nature  is  more 
natural  than  uneducated." 

Look  back  on  those  old  school  days — days  as  potent  in 
their  influence  as  in  their  associations  and  recollections. 
There  is  no  point  that  requires  nicer  discrimination  than  the 
line  of  early  life  to  be  marked  out  for  a  boy :  whether,  for  in- 
stance, he  should  go  to  a  public  school  or  only  to  a  small 
school,  or  should  be  brought  up  at  home.  I  believe  that  the 
masters  of  our  great  public  schools  can  discern  much  more 
clearly  than  parents  how  certain  boys  ought  to  be  held  dis- 
qualified for  public-school  life,  although  it  is  by  no  means 
very  clear  on  the  surface  why  this  should  be  the  case.  There 
is  the  boy  of  weak  health,  who  is  quite  unfitted  to  rough  it, 
even  under  the  improved  condition  of  things  at  public  schools. 
We  can  not,  as  was  done  in  Spartan  days,  subject  all  to  the 
same  conditions,  and  let  the  strong  live  and  the  weak  die. 


SOME   CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABITS.  3I 

Again,  there  is  the  boy  who  is  morally  weak,  who  has  little 
bone  or  sinew  in  his  character,  easily  led,  unable  to  resist 
temptation,  almost  inviting  outrage  and  oppression.  Once 
more,  there  is  the  dull  boy,  always  gravitating  to  the  bottom 
of  his  class,  who  in  a  mechanical  way  is  pushed  through  the 
routine  of  a  school  without  ever  mastering  any  real  knowl- 
edge. A  clever  boy  gets  on  well  at  a  public  school,  and  re- 
ceives every  care  and  encouragement,  while  the  stupid  boy 
ordinarily  goes  to  the  wall.  Schoolmasters  do  not  even  yet 
sufficiently  realize  the  fact  that  the  true  test  of  the  excellence 
of  a  school  is  not  so  much  the  turning  out  of  some  brilliant 
scholars  as  maintaining  a  high  general  average. 

There  are  no  days  more  important  than  school-days.  Then 
the  strongest  habits  are  fixed.  Then  the  firmest  friendships 
are  contracted.  The  permanent  character  of  a  man  is  per- 
haps more  truly  shadowed  forth  in  school-days  than  in  col- 
lege-days. In  later  life  a  man  is  much  more  like  what  he 
was  at  school  than  what  he  was  at  college.  Then  line  upon 
line,  precept  upon  precept,  here  a  little,  there  a  little,  becomes 
the  rule  of  life. 

I  remember  very  well  my  first  view  of  Liverpool  across  the 
Mersey.  From  the  green  country  side,  across  the  broad  tidal 
river,  I  looked  upon  the  magnificent  great  town  which  has 
arisen  upon  the  marshes  over  which  the  lorn  liver  once 
croaked  and  flew.  Far  up  in  the  sky  appeared  a  cloud,  like 
a  dense  pall — a  cloud  of  smoke  and  fog — all  the  lifelong  day 
overspreading  the  heavens.  Of  course  this  would  belong 
also  to  London  and  all  great  towns,  but  I  was  never  more 
struck  with  it  than  those  many  years  ago  at  Liverpool.  When 
I  journeyed  about  the  great  town,  moved  about  the  streets 
and  docks  and  halls  of  Liverpool,  the  consciousness  of  the 
pall  in  which  we  were  wrapped  wore  off;  after  a  fashion  we 
felt  the  sun  and  the  breezes,  and  now  in  the  populous  city 


32  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

pent  we  thought  little  how  from  the  green  river-side  the  as- 
pect of  the  big  town  had  seemed  so  cloudy  and  unwholesome. 
Even  so  from  the  green  river-side  of  childhood  we  look  for- 
ward with  eager  expectation  to  the  crowded  thoroughfares  of 
life;  we  detect  in  those  early  generous  days  the  gloom  and 
worldliness  of  things,  but  unconsciously  we  pass  into  the 
cloud,  and  the  pall  is  over  us  as  over  others.  Ah,  happy 
those  who  on  the  lawns  and  uplands  lay  in  fresh  stores  of 
vigor  and  health,  who  can  at  times  seek  once  more  for  the 
freshness  of  those  fields  and  streams,  and  can  look  forward 
to  renew  in  age  the  Elysium  of  youth — in  the  happiest  sense, 
the  second  childhood,  which  has  the  love  most  free  from  fear, 
the  obedience  most  removed  from  restraint ! 

The  law  of  habit  is  that  general  habits  are  formed  by  par- 
ticular acts.  I  have  seen  a  mighty  river,  on  whose  bosom  a 
whole  navy  might  repose,  at  its  well-head  on  the  moors. 
You  might  then  easily  step  across  the  infant  stream.  So  that 
irresistible  force  of  habit  which,  when  ingrained,  gains  an  in- 
domitable power,  is  at  the  commencement  a  force  easily  ca- 
pable of  being  measured  and  guided.  The  habit  is  created 
by  the  repetition  of  innumerable  little  acts.  The  object  and 
the  main  anxiety  of  life  must  be  to  watch  and  direct  aright 
this  great  motive  force  of  life.  It  is  said  in  the  words  of  In- 
finite Truth  that  he  who  despises  small  things  shall  perish  by 
little  and  little.  We  are  told  that  line  must  be  upon  line, 
precept  upon  precept,  here  a  little,  there  a  little.  So  too  we 
are  told  that  he  who  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  greatest  is 
also  faithful  in  that  which  is  least. 

As  we  stand  in  some  vast  manufactory  in  the  North,  we 
perhaps  wonder,  amid  the  whirring  of  wheels  and  the  clang 
of  machinery,  at  the  ease  and  adroitness  with  which  even 
young  children  can  perform  their  allotted  part.  They  nimbly 
move  with  the  wheels,  and  deftly  handle  the  threads.  It  is 


SOME   CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABITS.  33 

easy  to  notice  the  readiness  and  unconsciousness  with  which 
they  get  through  their  work.  Now  this  is  in  accordance  with 
the  second  nature  of  habit.  This  is  in  exact  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  habit.  We  acquire  a  habit,  and  even  forget  how 
we  acquired  it.  The  more  perfectly  we  have  acquired  a  hab- 
it, the  more  unconsciously  we  obey  it.  And  it  is  easy  to  see 
in  the  nature  of  things  why  this  should  be  the  case.  If  we 
had  to  deliberate  on  each  action,  the  day  would  not  suffice 
for  its  duties.  So  it  is  that  habit  supplies  promptness  and 
celerity.  We  could  not  inform  each  detail  of  conduct  with 
its  philosophy,  reason  out  each  act  as  it  occurs.  Neverthe- 
less, where  the  habit  is  fixed  on  solid  ground,  we  ought  to  be 
able  to  analyze  the  act,  to  refer  the  act  to  the  habit,  and  the 
habit  to  the  law.  As  Dean  Howson  says,  "  There  is  a  bless- 
edness for  those  who  have  learned  the  unconscious  habit  of 
joyous  obedience ;  who  serve  God  without  effort  and  without 
reluctance  ;  who  rise,  as  the  sun  rises,  to  travel  the  appointed 
journey,  and  who  sleep  as  those  who  have  been  guided  all 
day  long  in  the  way  of  peace." 

If  we  endeavored  to  carry  out  the  motto  approfondissez,  get 
to  the  bottom  of  the  subject,  the  consideration  of  habits  would 
lead  us  into  a  curious  vein  of  inquiry.  Nearly  all  the  philos- 
ophers have  had  their  discussions  on  "habits."  They  define 
habit  as  a  facility  in  doing  a  thing  and  an  inclination  to  do  it. 
Habits  may  be  formed  not  only  by  acts,  but  by  refraining  from 
acts.  Indolence  is  a  habit  formed  by  neglecting  to  do  what 
ought  to  be  done.  Voluntary  acts  become  involuntary,  cases 
of  volitional  acts  pass  into  automatic.  Aristotle  points  out 
that  there  is  positive  pain  in  resisting  a  formed  habit.  The 
moralists  discuss  habits  objectively,  as  generic  and  specific ; 
and  subjectively,  as  active  and  passive.  With  a  little  puzzling 
out,  the  reader  will  find  out  easily  the  meaning  of  the  classifi- 
cation. Then  they  are  very  anxious  to  guard  against  the  mis- 

B  2 


34 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


chievous  delusion  that  the  power  of  evil  habit  is  giving  way 
when  they  are  not  doing  any  thing  which,  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  habit,  would  strengthen  it.  Probably  there  is  only 
a  pause  of  exhaustion  or  repletion,  or  the  removal  of  the 
means  of  gratifying  them,  or  the  exchange  of  one  bad  habit 
for  a  cognate  one.  They  have  also  discussed  whether  habit 
is  limited  to  living  beings.  Is  not  the  acclimatization  of 
plants  a  resemblance  of  habit  ?  Do  we  not  see  the  same 
thing  in  the  docility  of  animals,  which,  according  to  modern 
teaching,  are  removed  from  us  by  so  light  and  variable  a  line. 
The  connection  between  habit  and  instinct,  and  the  connec- 
tion between  habit  and  association,  are  very  interesting  and 
important  questions.  Another  very  important  question  is, 
how  far  we  are  influenced  by  the  habits  of  our  forefathers,  or 
may  influence  the  habits  of  our  descendants.  It  is  a  very 
important  consideration  how  far  by  our  own  habits  we  may 
be  affecting  other  moral  and  physical  life.  This  subject  is 
called  Atavism.  There  are,  for  instance,  various  orders  of 
disease  which  in  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  cases  are  of  an  inher- 
ited character.  And  what  is  Atavism?  perhaps  you  ask. 
Briefly  it  may  be  answered  that  Atavism  is  a  tendency  on  the 
part  of  offspring  to  revert  to  some  more  or  less  remote  ances- 
tral type.  The  subject  belongs  to  that  great  general  subject 
of  inheritance  on  which  Mr.  Darwin  has  written  so  much,  and 
on  which  other  writers  in  following  him  have  had  so  much  to 
say.  In  his  work  on  "Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestica- 
tion" there  are  an  immense  number  of  instances  of  reversion. 
Mr.  Darwin  takes  his  instances  from  pansies  and  roses,  from 
silk-worms,  from  hybrids,  from  pigs  and  pigeons,  from  men 
and  dogs.  Let  us  look  at  the  nobler  human  subject.  Mr. 
Darwin  speaks  of  the  strong  likeness  through  the  line  of  the 
Austrian  emperors,  and  quotes  Niebuhr's  remarks  on  the  old 
Roman  families.  There  are  some  curious  medical  facts  re- 


SOME    CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABITS. 


35 


lating  to  the  subject.  Thus,  in  cases  of  hereditary  illness, 
children  will  fall  ill  about  the  same  age  as  their  fathers  did ; 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  Mr.  Paget  says,  it  will  be  a  little  ear- 
lier. These  are  very  unpleasant  facts  in  relation  to  Atavism. 
It  is  all  very  well  that  one  should  recall  the  features  of  an  il- 
lustrious ancestor.  When  Lord  Shaftesbury  stood  lately  at 
an  exhibition  below  the  portrait  of  his  ancestor  the  likeness 
was  most  remarkable ;  he  might  have  stepped  down  from  the 
canvas.  There  used  to  be  a  man  about  London  who  was 
supposed  to  be  a  lineal  descendant  of  James  the  Second,  and 
who  certainly  looked  much  more  like  a  cavalier  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  than  belonging  to  these  modern  days.  More- 
over, Mr.  Gallon  in  his  well-known  book  has  shown  us  how 
cleverness  is  inherited,  and  that  it  is  the  tendency  of  genius 
to  reappear.  This  is  the  agreeable  side  of  Atavism.  We 
have  mentioned  the  other  side  indicated  by  sagacious  medi- 
cal theory,  that  the  physician  should  look  closely  to  the  child 
at  the  period  when  any  grave  heritable  disease  attacked  the 
parent.  Thus  inexplicable  neuralgic  affections  have  attacked 
parents  and  children — although  we  may  fairly  hope  that  in 
these  days  neuralgia  is  becoming  strictly  amenable  to  medi- 
cal science.  Blindness  is  sadly  hereditary  :  in  one  case  thir- 
ty-seven members  of  a  race.  Another  family  suffered  from 
ferocious  headaches  which  always  ceased  at  a  certain  age. 

A  great  many  important  practical  questions  turn  on  this 
subject  of  Atavism.  For  instance,  there  is  the  important 
practical  question,  which  cousins  seem  in  such  a  hurry  to  an- 
swer in  the  affirmative,  whether  cousins  ought  to  marry.  An- 
other very  important  question  is,  whether  consumptives  ought 
to  marry.  Dr.  Charles  J.  B.Williams  says  that  he  has  so  "  ad- 
vised many  a  consumptive,  and  in  numerous  instances  the  re- 
sults have  been  happy."  He  also  very  truly  says — and  the 
saying  illustrates  the  proverbial  selfishness  of.  love — that  the 


36  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

objection  that  children  may  inherit  the  consumptive  tendency 
is  an  objection  more  valid  with  physicians  and  friends  than 
with  the  consumptives  whose  affections  are  engaged.  In  ref- 
erence to  inherited  disease,  very  strange  is  the  fact  that  we 
may  see  one  member  of  a  family  surviving  in  good  health  to 
a  good  old  age,  while  all  the  other  members  of  the  family  fall 
victims  to  consumption  or  some  other  form  of  inherited  dis- 
ease ;  a  fact  which  indicates,  among  other  things,  how  chaotic 
and  problematical  is  the  real  knowledge  of  chest  diseases. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  an  ingenious  argument  on  the 
subject  of  Atavism.  He  discusses  the  subject  of  our  appre- 
ciation of  scenery,  which  he  is  not  content  to  refer  simply  to 
the  tastes  or  associations  of  an  individual  man  himself.  He 
goes  beyond  this  to  "certain  deeper,  but  now  vague, combina- 
tions of  states,  that  were  organized  in  the  race  during  barba- 
rous times,  when  its  pleasurable  activities  were  among  the 
mountains,  woods,  and  waters.  Out  of  these  excitations,  some 
of  them  actual,  but  most  of  them  nascent,  is  composed  the 
emotion  which  a  fine  landscape  produces  in  us."  If  I  under- 
stand Mr.  Spencer's  theory,  to  which  Professor  Tyndall  gives 
his  adhesion,  we  have  here  a  new  phase  of  the  doctrine  of 
Atavism.  Just  as  Mr.  Darwin  seized  from  Mr.  Woolner  that 
little  protuberance  of  the  ear  which  he  imagines  identifies  us 
with  our  simian  ancestry,  so  Mr.  Spencer  thinks  that  he  de- 
tects in  our  love  of  scenery  involving  adventures  the  traces  of 
our  barbaric  descent.  In  this  way  the  race  in  its  progress  ab- 
sorbs and  contains  in  itself  the  characteristics  of  the  different 
generations. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  Atavism,  necessarily  untouch- 
ed by  physiologists,  on  which  I  should  desire  to  say  a  few 
words.  There  is  the  curious  subject  of  the  recurrence  of  mor- 
al characteristics,  where  the  mental  and  moral  characteristics 
of  men  dormant  for  generations  singularly  wake  up  in  their 


SOME    CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABI7S.  37 

descendants.  There  are  some  fine  lines  in  George  Eliot's 
"  Spanish  Gipsy"  which  bring  out  the  subject,  and  poetry  is 
here  as  true  as  physiology : 

"  I  read  a  record  deeper  than  the  skin. 
What !     Shall  the  trick  of  nostril  and  oflips 
Descend  through  generations,  and  the  soul 
That  moves  within  our  frame  like  God  in  worlds — 
Convulsing,  urging,  melting,  withering — 
Imprint  no  record,  leave  no  documents 
Of  her  great  history  ?     Shall  men  bequeath 
The  fancies  of  their  palates  to  their  sons, 
And  shall  the  shudder  of  restraining  awe, 
The  slow-wept  tears  of  contrite  memory, 
Faith's  prayerful  labor,  and  the  food  divine 
Of  fasts  ecstatic — shall  these  pass  away, 
Like  wind  upon  the  waters,  tracklessly  ? 
Shall  the  mere  curl  of  eyelashes  remain, 
And  God-enshrining  symbols  leave  no  trace 
Of  tremors  reverent  ?    That  maiden's  blood 
Is  as  unchristian  as  the  leopard's." 

Just  as  you  may  transmit  peculiarities  of  hair,  eye,  and  lip, 
you  may  also  transmit  a  sceptical,  or  meditative,  or  irritable 
tendency.  Not  only  the  trick  of  nostril  and  lip,  but  the  medi- 
tative or  devotional  vein  is  transmitted  to  posterity.  There 
is  many  a  parent  who  grieves  over  his  own  errors  reproduced ; 
but  a  grandfather  often  takes  more  notice  of  a  child's  ways 
even  than  his  father,  and  may,  perhaps,  according  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  Atavism,  often  see  his  own  ways  reproduced.  And 
now  a  further  principle  comes  into  play,  a  moral  law  of  a  very 
peculiar  character. 

We  often  notice  how  there  are  certain  faults  which  we  call 
"family  failings"  that  seem  transmitted  from  generation  to 
generation.  Sometimes  fiery  passion  seems  inherent  in  a 
line,  sometimes  covetousness  or  untruth ;  again  and  again 
there  is  some  ugly  phase  of  human  nature  produced  of  the 


38  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

same  type.  And  now  look  at  another  set  of  correlated  in- 
stances. Do  you  ever  notice  how  some  particular  kind  of 
misfortunes  dogs  certain  families  ?  Sometimes  it  is  childless- 
ness ;  there  is  never  more  than  one  son  in  a  family,  or  title 
and  estates  never  come  by  direct  succession.  Sometimes 
the  children  are  all  early  swept  away  by  death.  Sometimes 
there  is  chronic  struggle  and  poverty  ;  sometimes  chronic 
disease.  It  seems  impossible  to  connect  any  special  form  of 
moral  evil  with  any  special  form  of  misfortune,  in  such  de- 
scent. What,  for  instance,  has  the  childlessness  of  people  got 
to  do  with  their  covetousness  ?  Yet  if  we  admit  the  theory 
of  the  moral  government  of  the  universe,  it  is  by  no  means 
inconceivable  that  in  a  wonderful  .way  this  kind  of  sorrow 
may  be  penalty  and  corrective  for  this  kind  of  moral  evil. 
We  may  be  powerless  to  trace  the  connection,  but  still  a  sub- 
tle connection  may  exist.  There  certainly  seems  a  kind  of 
Atavism  in  the  moral  government  of  the  world  ;  the  good 
and  evil  of  a  family  manifesting  itself  to  distant  generations, 
and  when  the  same  kind  of  evil  is  exhibited,  the  same  kind 
of  penalty  revives.  The  subject  is  obscure  and  difficult,  but 
we  seem  dimly  to  discern  the  outlines  of  a  moral  law. 

It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  to  find  men  shielding  themselves 
behind  their  habits,  and  referring  these  habits  to  the  mode  of 
bringing  up  in  their  youth.  There  is,  however,  a  kind  of  fa- 
talism in  this  argument ;  it  is  the  plea  of  necessity.  It  is  a 
plea  which,  in  early  years,  and  to  a  certain  extent,  has  great 
force.  But  the  time  comes  when  reason  and  conscience 
should  become  more  potent  influences  than  the  suggestions 
of  the  instinct  of  habit.  It  may  be  granted  that  those  whose 
careless  or  unguarded  youth  has  been  spent  in  the  slavery  of 
evil  habits  start  heavily  weighted  in  the  race  of  life.  For  such 
persons  there  is  a  doubly  hard  self-conquest  to  be  attained  be- 
fore any  other  true  conquest  is  possible. 


SOME   CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABITS.  39 

There  are  optimist  views  and  pessimist  views  of  life,  both 
of  which  are  probably  equally  remote  from  the  truth.  Per- 
haps a  man  starts  in  life  heavily  weighted  with  some  griev- 
ance. Through  his  own  carelessness,  or  that  of  some  one 
else,  he  broke  his  leg,  and  evermore  any  running  that  he  can 
make  in  a  race  is  that  of  a  lame  man.  It  seems  absurd  to 
take  an  optimist  point  of  view,  and  to  say  that  the  best  thing 
possible  for  the  man  was  that  his  leg  should  be  broken.  It 
is  equally  absurd  to  be  always  groaning  as  you  shoulder  the 
crutch.  Here  are  the  given  circumstances,  and  you  have  to 
make  the  best  of  them.  Nature,  with  her  countless  adapta- 
tions, perhaps  makes  some  exquisite  atonement  for  that  which 
seemed  marred  and  wasted.  I  think  we  may  all  venture  to 
be  optimists,  not  in  the  sense  that  every  thing  is  for  the  best 
— which  appears  to  me  to  be  hardly  religious  or  rational — 
but  in  the  sense  that  we  may  make  the  best  of  every  thing. 
The  Christian  is  told  that  all  things  will  work  together  for  his 
good ;  but  he  is  not  told  that  better  things  would  not  have 
worked  for  a  higher  good. 

It  is  sad  indeed  to  watch  the  moral  wreck  that  is  exhibited 
by  some  wretched  victim  who  is  vanquished  by  the  dominant 
power  of  some  evil  habit.  Aristotle  has  traced  the  progress 
of  the  man  who  has  no  self-control  to  the  state  of  the  man 
whom  no  remedies  can  amend.*  At  times  there  seems  so 
much  that  is  winning  and  estimable  about  some  man  of  whom 
we  are  told  that  he  is  the  helpless  slave  of  some  vice  or  hide- 
ous passion.  The  details  of  such  an  unfortunate  state  of  mind 
at  times  appear  to  be  not  unlike  those  of  demoniacal  posses- 
sion, and  to  suggest  the  possibility  that  there  may  be  still  those 
possessed  like  the  Gadarenes  of  old.  Thucydides  tells  us  that 
at  the  time  of  the  plague  of  Athens  other  diseases  disappeared, 
or,  if  any  existed,  they  ran  into  the  prevalent  type  of  illness. 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


So  the  man  who  has  some  master  vice  often  shows  a  singular 
freedom  from  other  viciousness  and  moral  obliquity,  and  ex- 
hibits a  remarkable  grace  and  attractiveness.  He  will  charm 
us  by  his  amiability  and  intellectual  powers,  and  then  suddenly 
we  shall  see  a  sudden  and  awful  revelation  of  depravity.  He 
is  like  a  lunatic  who  is  able  to  simulate  sanity ;  who  on  many 
points  will  baffle  the  acuteness  of  counsel,  and  finally  will  ex- 
hibit some  frightful  delusion.  Often  the  helpless  victim  en- 
deavors to  struggle  against  the  coils  of  that  evil  habit,  against 
which  all  his  better  nature  unavailingly  protests.  How  sad 
and  plaintive  is  the  language  of  a  true  genius,  the  victim  of  a 
dominant  vice,  speaking  of  the  Magdalene  ! — 

"  She  sat  and  wept,  and  with  her  untressed  hair 
She  wiped  the  feet  she  was  so  blest  to  touch. 

And  He  wiped  off  the  railing  of  despair 

From  her  sweet  soul,  because  she  loved  so  much. 

I  am  a  sinner,  full  of  doubts  and  fears, 

Make  me  a  humble  thing  of  love  and  tears." 

That  is  a  frightful  "turning-point"  in  the  life  of  a  man  or 
woman  when  the  evil  habit,  after  many  struggles,  asserts  its 
supremacy.  That  is  an  infinitely  blessed  "  moment"  when 
once  more  there  is  the  rising  tide  of  good  habit.  The  moral 
disease  of  the  soul  often  requires  much  of  the  skillful  diagnosis 
and  careful  treatment  of  a  bodily  disease.  The  only  sane 
way  of  overpowering  and  eradicating  evil  habits  is  the  encour- 
agement of  good  habits  and  a  systematic  perseverance  in  them. 
There  is  a  divine  science  in  those  things.  Cease  to  do  evil ; 
learn  to  do  well.  Here  is  both  the  negative  and  the  positive 
side  of  well-doing.  It  is  much  to  abstain  from  the  act  of  sin  ; 
that  its  opportunity  should  recur,  and  that  no  advantage  should 
be  taken  of  it ;  that  the  temptation  should  be  encountered  and 
mastered.  It  is  much,  too,  that  the  opposite  tendencies  should 
be  encouraged,  that  the  good  habits  should  be  constituted 


SOME    CONSIDERATIONS  ON  HABITS.  41 

whose  nature  is  to  conflict  with  and  destroy  the  opposite  vices. 
It  is  often  good  that  the  sickly  soul  should  be  placed  under 
entirely  new  conditions,  where  it  shall  be  sheltered  from  bane- 
ful influences,  and  be  brought  within  salutary  influences. 
There  was  a  man  of  high  position  who  attributed  all  his  pros- 
perity and  health  to  a  sentence  of  penal  servitude  which  he 
once  underwent.  He  was  a  man  of  extravagant,  intemperate 
habits,  who  had  stabbed  some  one  in  a  fit  of  drunken  fury. 
Imprisonment  and  hard  labor  debarred  him  from  temptation, 
and  encouraged  the  formation  of  regular  habits.  Physical  and 
moral  health  returned  once  more.  On  his  release  he  came 
into  a  large  property,  married  well,  and  became  an  active  mag- 
istrate. It  is  now,  we  believe,  an  accepted  observation,  that  it 
is  the  long  sentences,  and  not  the  short  sentences,  of  penal 
servitude  that  really  promote  the  reformation  of  offenders 
against  the  law. 

There  is  always  the  danger  of  a  relapse.  There  is  an  in- 
evitable reaction  on  the  cessation  of  a  system  of  discipline.  It 
is  as  when  the  unclean  spirit  has  gone  out  of  the  house  of  a 
human  soul  and  left  it  swept  and  garnished.  But  the  strength- 
ened, purified  soul  will  be  able  to  resist.  A  medical  analogy 
will  help  us  here.  Physicians  will  tell  us  that  in  the  gradual 
amelioration  of  symptoms  the  constitutional  vigor  will  be  re- 
newed, and  the  chronic  disease  thrown  off.  So  after  being  in 
the  school  of  ceasing  to  do  evil  and  learning  to  do  well,  it  may 
be  found  that  when  the  temptation  recurs  it  is  altogether  in- 
operative to  tempt. 

The  diseased  soul  can  not  find  a  true  remedy  in  itself. 
Elsewhere  must  be  sought  the  physician  and  the  balm.  There 
is  no  more  important  "turning-point"  in  life  than  when  the 
insidious  advance  of  an  evil  habit  is  noted,  and  we  flee  to 
God  for  help.  Such  seasons  involve  the  deeper  issues  of  the 
soul,  which  are  more  important  than  any  external  event.  The 


42  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

young  and  ardent  may  in  airy  imagination  construct  vision- 
ary scenes  of  those  decisive  events  which  shall  be  the  turn- 
ing-points of  their  lives,  and  accomplish  for  them  the  fulfill- 
ment of  their  day-dreams.  Such  events  may  appear,  or,  more 
probably,  they  may  not.  It  is  in  the  steady  formation  of  fa- 
vorable habits  alone  that  we  can  form  any  moral  certitude 
that  something  analogous  may  occur.  These  will  assure  that 
when  the  opportunity  arises  it  will  be  grasped  and  turned  to 
the  best  advantage,  or  that  the  good  habits  in  their  slow,  un- 
felt  persistence  have  reaped  all  the  solid  good,  and  more  than 
could  be  gained  by  any  merely  fortuitous  occurrence. 


CRITICAL    "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE. 


43 


CHAPTER  III. 

Critical  "  Moments'  of  Life. 

THERE  occur  from  time  to  time  in  human  life  signal  mo- 
ments, which  become  the  landmarks  of  its  history.  These 
are  indeed  the  momentous  moments  of  life.  They  come  upon 
us  unawares.  The  air  is  charged  with  no  sense  of  oppression 
and  awe.  There  is  no  visible  sign  to  the  most  observant  or 
to  the  most  superstitious.  The  "moment"  itself  often  comes 
in  the  most  ordinary  and  common-place  guise.  It  is  perhaps 
only  a  call,  a  letter,  an  interview,  a  sudden  suggestion,  a  few 
minutes'  talk  at  a  railway-station,  and  with  a  suddenness  and 
abruptness  one  section  of  life  is  clasped,  and  an  entirely  new 
page  of  its  ledger  opened  up.  "  Do  you  remember  writing 
me  a  letter  one  day,  giving  M.'s  proposition  ?"  said  a  man  to 
me  the  other  day.  "  It  was  the  turning-point  of  my  life. 
When  your  proposal  came  I  had  also  a  proposition  to  go  to 
Scotland.  I  made  my  election,  and  it  colored  all  my  life." 
In  the  interesting  biography  of  Mr.  Barham  lately  published, 
it  is  mentioned  that  he  was  going  along  St.  Paul's  Church- 
yard when  he  met  a  friend  with  a  letter  in  his  hand.  The 
letter  was  to  invite  a  clergyman  from  the  country  to  come  up 
and  stand  for  a  minor  canonry  at  St.  Paul's.  It  occurred  to 
him  that  Mr.  Barham  would  do  just  as  well,  and  accordingly 
the  great  humorist  settled  down  into  a  metropolitan  wit  and 
diner-out.  I  hardly  know  whether  he  was  exactly  at  home  in 
his  vocation  as  a  clergyman,  but  he  and  Sidney  Smith  togeth- 
er were  the  cheerful  influences  of  the  chapter,  and  probably 


44  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

in  a  better  position  there  than  in  a  pastoral  charge.  Smith 
alternated  his  tremendous  spirits  with  deep  fits  of  depression, 
and  there  is  hardly  any  more  melancholy  story  than  of  the 
carelessness  which  ultimately  destroyed  Barham's  life.  There 
was  a  short  young  fellow  studying  in  the  reading-room  of  the 
British  Museum.  It  hardly  seemed  that  he  had  any  higher 
chance  in  life  than  to  become  usher  in  a  commercial  school, 
and  perhaps  in  course  of  time  win  his  way  to  have  a  commer- 
cial school  of  his  own.  He  attracted  the  attention  of  a  gen- 
tleman who  was  reading  there,  who  sent  him  to  Oxford,  and 
after  taking  his  degree  he  soon  made  his  thousand  a  year. 
I  am  sorry  to  say  that  to  him,  as  to  many  a  clever  fellow,  the 
success  was  ruinous  in  the  issue.  I  remember  hearing  of  a 
man  who,  while  hunting  about  for  a  pair  of  horses,  encoun- 
tered an  old  college  friend  in  a  state  of  great  seediness  and 
dejection.  He  was  a  poor  curate  who  did  not  care  to  stay  in 
England,  and  wanted  some  post  abroad.  He  was  told  of  a 
trifling  chaplaincy  in  a  remote  place  on  the  Continent.  It 
seemed  as  if  he  was  cutting  himself  off  from  every  avenue  to 
professional  advancement  at  home.  But  the  English  embas- 
sador,  it  so  happened,  came  to  this  little  town,  and  was  so 
charmed  with  the  temporary  chaplain  that  he  succeeded  in 
getting  him  high  preferment  in  England. 

It  is  here  that  the  great  importance  of  the  subject  of  habit 
indicates  itself.  The  crucial  moment  comes.  It  comes  as  a 
matter  of  chance,  and  it  appears  to  be  as  a  matter  of  chance 
how  it  shall  be  treated.  But  it  is  not  really  so.  Habit  has 
established  an  instinct  of  the  mind.  The  soul,  when  a  sud- 
den demand  is  made  upon  it  for  a  decision,  instinctively 
throws  itself  back  upon  its  past  experience,  and  answers  the 
demand  in  precise  accordance  with  the  habits  of  its  essential 
life.  For  many  years  the  life  has  been  unconsciously  shap- 
ing and  training  itself  toward  the  solution  of  some  problem 


CRITICAL   "MOMENTS"   OF  LIFE. 


45 


which  presents  itself  at  the  last.  We  should  all  be  anxious 
to  utilize  to  the  utmost  such  a  moment  of  fate. 

This  is  eloquently  put  in  a  young  girl's  marvelous  story  of 
"Jane  Eyre:"  "The  more  solitary,  the  more  friendless,  the 
more  unsustained  I  am,  the  more  I  will  respect  myself.  I 
will  keep  the  law  given  by  God,  sanctioned  by  man.  I  will 
hold  to  the  principles  received  by  me  when  I  was  sane,  and 
not  mad — as  I  am  now.  Laws  and  principles  are  not  for  the 
times  when  there  is  no  temptation ;  they  are  for  such  mo- 
ments as  this,  when  body  and  soul  rise  against  their  rigor. 
Stringent  as  they  are ;  inviolate  shall  they  be.  If  at  my  in- 
dividual convenience  I  might  break  them,  what  would  be  their 
worth?  They  have  a  worth,  so  I  have  always  believed;  and 
if  I  can  not  believe  it  now,  it  is  because  I  am  insane — quite 
insane  ;  with  my  veins  running  fire,  and  my  heart  beating 
faster  than  I  can  count  its  throbs.  Preconceived  opinions, 
foregone  determinations,  are  all  that  I  have  at  this  hour  to 
stand  by  :  there  I  plant  my  foot." 

But  here  is  the  intense  importance  of  the  habit.  The  pres- 
ent is  the  only  time,  and  the  golden  time.  Each  action  of 
life  ought  to  be  susceptible  of  being  referred  to  a  principle 
and  a  rationale,  and  so  when  the  momentous  moment  arrives 
it  comes  not  on  us  unawares,  "  but  at  a  convenient  season." 

"  Stay,  stay  the  present  instant, 
Imprint  the  marks  of  wisdom  on  its  wings ! 
O  let  it  not  elude  thy  grasp,  but  like 
The  good  old  patriarch  upon  record 
Hold  the  fleet  angel  fast  until  he  bless  thee !" 

Then  it  is  a  distinct  moment  in  life  when  first  one  meets 
with  some  friends,  whose  intercourse  probably  colors  all  sub- 
sequent history.  The  readers  and  writers  of  novels  appear 
to  look  upon  love-making  as  the  great  event  in  human  his- 
tory, but  probably  the  friendships  which  a  man  makes  with 


46  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

men  form  a  more  enduring  influence.  There  is  a  time  in 
the  days  of  youth  when  the  mind  is  full  of  active,  fermenting 
thought,  and  seems  to  wait  for  the  impregnating  moment  that 
shall  fertilize  it.  To  the  boy  fresh  from  school,  whose  mind 
is  full  of  the  active  or  intellectual  pursuits  of  life,  the  moment 
when  he  is  drawn  into  intimacy  with  some  man  eminent  in 
that  line  to  which  his  special  interest  is  being  drawn,  is  al- 
most a  supreme  moment  in  life.  The  youth  has  had  a  natu- 
ral taste  for  art,  and  he  has  been  thrown  into  intimacy  with 
an  artist.  He  has  had  a  love  of  letters,  and  for  the  first  time 
some  friend  guides  his  taste,  and  the  riches  of  a  great  library 
are  put  at  his  disposal.  He  has  had  a  natural  taste  for  me- 
chanical contrivance,  and  some  engineer  sees  and  likes  him, 
and  explains  to  him  the  principles  of  his  craft.  Such  friend- 
ships as  develop  natural  tastes,  and  lead  into  new  fields  of 
knowledge,  form  in  their  commencement  real  crises  and  turn- 
ing-points of  life.  So  Lord  Shelburne  said  of  a  visit  to  the 
aged  Malesherbes  :  "  I  have  traveled  much,  but  I  have  never 
been  so  influenced  by  personal  contact  with  any  man  ;  and 
if  ever  I  accomplish  any  good  in  the  course  of  my  life,  I  am 
certain  that  the  recollection  of  M.  de  Malesherbes  will  ani- 
mate my  soul."  "  I  always  remembered,"  said  Flaxman, 
"Romney's  notice  of  my  boyish  years  and  productions  with 
gratitude  ;  I  shall  feel  the  benefit  of  his  acquaintance." 

Then,  early  intellectual  moments  in  life,  I  imagine,  imprint 
themselves  as  strongly  upon  the  memory  as  any  events  of  the 
outer  life.  We  have  spoken  of  the  irrepressible  delight  with 
which  the  boy  or  girl  produces  a  poem,  or  what  seems  to 
them  as  such,  and  there  is  a  sense  of  a  new  power.  But  so 
it  is  when  the  same  young  hero  first  discovers  that  he  can 
swim,  or  can  draw,  or  can  stand  up  and  make  a  speech. 
Who  is  there  who  can  not  recollect  the  wild  delight  with 
which  he  first  read  the  "  Arabian  Nights"  or  "  Robinson  Cru- 


CRITICAL  "MOMENTS"   OF  LIFE. 


47 


soe,"  or  his  maturer  years  in  which  he  first  read  the  pictur- 
esque pages  of  Macaulay,  devoured  the  works  of  Scott  or 
Dickens,  or  was  inoculated  with  the  epidemic  enthusiasm  for 
Tennyson  !  No  doubt  it  has  often  been  the  reading  of  some 
particular  book  which  has  determined  a  man  to  be  an  artist, 
a  traveler,  or  a  student  of  nature.  I  remember  as  a  young 
man  there  were  three  books  which  the  University  of  Oxford 
put  into  our  hands  as  young  students,  which  were  calculated 
to  do  us  very  real  service.  I  am  afraid  that  I  did  not  make 
as  much  use  as  I  might  have  done  of  them,  but  doubtless  they 
did  me  a  great  service,  and  I  shall  always  feel  grateful  to  the 
Kind  Mother  who  directed  my  attention  to  them.  I  can  very 
well  understand  how,  when  Dr.  Arnold  was  hesitating  whether 
he  should  send  his  son  to  Cambridge  or  Oxford,  "  dear  old 
'  Tottle' "  settled  the  day.  He  could  not  bear  that  his  son 
should  not  have  the  advantage  of  the  course  of  philosophy  at 
Oxford.  I  was  not  very  much  impressed  with  the  little  I  read 
of  Aristotle.  In  those  days  we  did  nothing  much  beyond  the 
"  Ethics,"  but  the  first  time  I  read  the  "  Republic"  of  Plato 
through,  especially  with  the  advantage,  not  altogether  un- 
mixed, of  Mr.  Jowett's  lectures,  quite  a  new  world  of  thought 
broke  in  upon  me.  The  other  two  works  were  those  of  au- 
thors of  our  own,  who  are  universally  known  and  quoted — the 
"  Analogy"  of  Butler,  and  the  "  Novum  Organon"  of  Bacon. 
If  the  University  of  Oxford  teaches  a  man  nothing  else,  it  at 
least  teaches  him  how  to  read  a  book  carefully  and  thorough- 
ly. Let  me  also  say  it  delights  me  to  pay  this  parting  tribute 
to  the  memory  of  a  wise  and  excellent  man — that  reading 
through  the  first  two  volumes  of  Alford's  Greek  Testament 
was  a  wonderful  help  and  a  good  introduction  to  "  Biblical 
Criticism"  to  those  of  us  who  took  orders  after  his  work  was 
completed.  "  I  remember,"  says  an  Oxford  alter  ego,  "  the  few 
striking  events  of  an  ordinary  life — seeing  a  great  fire,  being 


48  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

nearly  drowned  in  the  Rhine,  nearly  lost  on  hills,  catching  a 
fever,  thrown  out  of  a  carriage,  seeing  the  queen,  and  so  on — 
but  hardly  any  events  have  been  more  vivid  than  the  reading 
of  the  Oxford  class-books  for  '  Greats.'  " 

Many  instances  might  be  given  of  the  contact  of  mind  with 
mind,  of  the  fertile  results  that  have  come  to  pass  when  some 
receptive  has  been  brought  into  contact  with  some  fertilizing 
mind.  Perhaps  there  was  no  man  who  exercised  a  more  as- 
tonishing influence  on  young  people  than  Dr.  Arnold.  Thus 
we  read  in  a  recent  "  Life  of  Bishop  Cotton,"  the  Metropolitan 
of  India,  how  he  came  to  Rugby  as  an  Assistant  Master,  and 
he  is  described  in  "  Tom  Brown's  School  Days"  as  the  "  model 
young  master."  The  biographer  says,  "  The  influences  of  this 
appointment  on  his  after  life  were  incalculable.  First  among 
these  must  be  counted  the  impression  produced  upon  him  by 
the  character  and  teaching  of  his  great  chief.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  there  was  none  of  all  the  direct  pupils  of  Dr. 
Arnold  on  whom  so  deep  and  exclusive  a  mark  of  their  mas- 
ter's mind  was  produced  as  on  Cotton.  ...  In  later  years,  in 
many  instances,  its  particular  effects  were  more  or  less  rudely 
effaced  either  by  the  impulses  of  their  own  growing  thoughts, 
or  by  the  disturbing  attractions  of  other  men  and  other  schools 
of  thought."  This  by  the  way  truly  indicates  what  there  was 
of  decline  in  Arnold's  influence.  But  Cotton  came  into  con- 
tact with  him  after  his  mind  had  been  already  formed,  and  yet 
before  he  had  been  swayed  by  any  other  commanding  influ- 
ence. Mr.  Francis  William  Newman,  in  his  "  Phases  of  Faith," 
gives  a  very  interesting  account  of  the  various  people  whom 
he  met,  and  who  aided  him  in  the  formation  of  his  opinions. 
Mr.  Newman  went  out  to  Bagdad,  apparently  with  the  inten- 
tion of  converting  the  heathen,  but  in  the  result  the  heathen 
nearer  home  converted  him.  Dr.  Arnold  did  not  influence 
him,  and  his  influence  over  Newman's  mind  declined.  He 


CRITICAL   "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE. 


49 


thus  gives  an  account  of  the  incident  which  really  seems  to 
have  been  a  turning-point  to  him  :  "When  we  were  at  Aleppo, 
I  one  day  got  into  religious  discourse  with  a  Mohammedan 
carpenter,  which  left  on  me  a  lasting  impression.  Among 
other  matters,  I  was  peculiarly  desirous  of  disabusing  him  of 
the  current  notion  of  his  people,  that  our  Gospels  are  spurious 
narratives  of  late  dates.  I  found  great  difficulty  of  expres- 
sion ;  but  the  man  listened  to  me  with  much  attention,  and  I 
was  encouraged  to  exert  myself.  He  waited  patiently  till  I 
had  done,  and  then  spoke  to  the  following  effect :  '  I  will  tell 
you,  sir,  how  the  case  stands.  God  has  given  to  you  English 
a  great  many  good  gifts.  You  make  fine  ships,  and  sharp 
penknives,  and  good  cloth  and  cottons ;  and  you  have  rich 
nobles  and  brave  soldiers ;  and  you  write  and  print  many 
learned  books  (dictionaries  and  grammars) ;  all  this  is  of  God. 
But  there  is  one  thing  that  God  has  withheld  from  you  and  re- 
vealed to  us,  and  that  is  a  knowledge  of  the  true  religion,  by 
which  one  may  be  saved.'  When  he  thus  ignored  my  argu- 
ment (which  was  probably  quite  unintelligible  to  him),  and 
delivered  his  simple  protest,  I  was  silenced,  and  at  the  same 
time  amused.  But  the  more  I  thought  it  over,  the  more  in- 
struction I  saw  in  the  case.  His  position  toward  me  was  ex- 
actly that  of  a  humble  Christian  toward  an  unbelieving  phi- 
losopher :  nay,  that  of  the  early  apostles  or  Jewish  prophets 
toward  the  proud,  cultivated,  worldly-wise,  and  powerful  hea- 
then." 

It  is  very  interesting  to  compare  the  experience  of  such  a 
man  as  Francis  Newman  with  that  of  such  a  man  as  his 
brother,  John  Henry  Newman.  We  extract  a  passage  from 
the  famous  "  Apology."  We  see  here  a  turning-point  in  indi- 
vidual life,  and,  more  than  that,  in  the  religious  history  of  the 
century. 

"  Especially,  when  I  was  left  to  myself,  the  thought  came 

C 


5° 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


upon  me  that  deliverance  is  wrought,  not  by  the  many,  but  b> 
the  few  ;  not  by  bodies,  but  by  persons.  Now  it  was,  I  think, 
that  I  repeated  to  myself  the  words  which  had  ever  been  dear 
to  me  from  my  school-days,  '  Exoriare  aliquis !'  Now,  too, 
that  Southey's  beautiful  poem  of  '  Thalaba,'  for  which  I  had 
an  immense  liking,  came  forcibly  to  my  mind,  I  began  to  think 
that  I  had  a  mission.  There  are  sentences  of  my  letters  to 
my  friends  to  this  effect,  if  they  are  not  destroyed.  When  we 
took  leave  of  Monsignore  Wiseman,  he  had  courteously  ex- 
pressed a  wish  that  we  might  make  a  second  visit  to  Rome. 
I  said,  with  great  gravity,  'We  have  a  work  to  do  in  England.' 
I  went  down  at  once  to  Sicily,  and  the  presentiment  grew 
stronger.  I  struck  into  the  middle  of  the  island,  and  fell  ill 
of  a  fever  at  Leonforte.  My  servant  thought  that  I  was  dy- 
ing, and  begged  for  my  last  directions.  I  gave  them  as  he 
wished,  but  I  said, '  I  shall  not  die.'  I  repeated, '  I  shall  not 
die,  for  I  have  not  sinned  against  light ;  I  have  not  sinned 
against  light.'  I  have  never  been  able  to  make  out  at  all 
what  I  meant. 

"  I  got  to  Castro  Giovanni,  and  was  laid  up  there  for  nearly 
three  weeks.  Toward  the  end  of  May  I  set  off  for  Palermo, 
taking  three  days  for  the  journey.  Before  starting  from  my 
inn  on  the  morning  of  May  26th  or  27th,  I  sat  down  on  my  bed, 
and  began  to  sob  bitterly.  My  servant,  who  had  acted  as  my 
nurse,  asked  what  ailed  me.  I  could  only  answer, '  I  have  a 
work  to  do  in  England.' 

"  I  was  aching  to  get  home ;  yet  for  want  of  a  vessel  I  was 
kept  at  Palermo  nearly  three  weeks.  I  began  to  visit  the 
churches,  and  they  calmed  my  impatience,  though  I  did  not 
attend  any  services.  I  knew  nothing  of  the  presence  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  there.  At  last  I  got  off  in  an  orange-boat 
bound  for  Marseilles.  We  were  becalmed  a  whole  week  in 
the  Straits  of  Bonafacio.  Then  it  was  I  wrote  the  lines  '  Lead. 


CRITICAL    "MOMENTS'"    OF  LIFE.  51 

Kindly  Light,'  which  have  since  become  well  known.  I  was 
writing  verses  the  whole  time  of  my  passage.  At  length  I 
got  to  Marseilles,  and  set  off  for  England.  The  fatigue  of 
traveling  was  too  much  for  me,  and  I  was  laid  up  for  several 
days  at  Lyons.  At  last  I  got  off  again,  and  did  not  stop  night 
or  day  till  I  reached  England  and  my  mother's  house.  My 
brother  had  arrived  from  Persia  only  a  few  hours  before. 
This  was  on  Tuesday.  The  following  Sunday,  July  i4th,  Mr. 
Keble  preached  the  assize  sermon  in  the  University  pulpit. 
It  was  published  under  the  title  of  '  National  Apostasy.'  I 
have  ever  considered  and  kept  the  day  as  the  start  of  the  re- 
ligious movement  of  1833." 

Of  a  sudden  turning-point  in  a  man's  destiny  we  may  find 
an  example  in  the  "  Life  of  Bishop  Cotton."  His  whole  course 
of  life  was  changed  very  suddenly.  When  the  news  came  to 
England  of  the  death  of  Bishop  Wilson,  soon  after  the  Muti- 
ny, his  great  friend,  Dr.  Tait,  determined  if  possible  to  secure 
the  appointment  for  Dr.  Cotton,  the  head-master  of  Marlbor- 
ough.  "The  Bishop  of  London,  with  all  the  energy  of  his 
character,  pressed  Cotton's  merits  on  the  Government  of  that 
day,  but.  partly  from  an  apprehension  lest  his  modesty  should 
throw  some  obstacle  in  the  way,  without  consulting  Cotton 
himself.  Meanwhile,  from  causes  unnecessary  here  to  men- 
tion, the  hope  of  accomplishing  this  object  had  faded  away, 
and  the  subject  was  dropped,  until  the  bishop  was  suddenly 
informed  that  if  Cotton  would  take  the  post  it  was  still  at  his 
disposal.  There  was  not  a  moment  of  time  to  be  lost.  A 
change  of  Government  had  just  taken  place,  and  Mr.  Vernon 
Smith,  now  Lord  Lyveden,  who  was  then  the  Secretary  of 
State  for  India,  was  holding  the  post  only  till  a  new  Ministry 
could  be  formed.  The  bishop  telegraphed  the  offer  to  Marl- 
borough.  It  was  like  a  thunderbolt  to  Cotton  in  the  midst 
of  his  peaceful  labors.  The  telegram  dropped  from  his  hands, 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


and  he  rushed  from  the  school  to  his  house,  and  thence  hur- 
ried to  London.  ...  It  was  one  of  those  decisive  cases  in 
which  the  mere  decision  is  enough  to  shake  the  minds  of 
most.  Perhaps  in  Cotton's  case  an  outside  spectator  would 
have  been  startled  and  even  disappointed  to  observe  how 
slightly  he  seemed  to  be  agitated.  The  calm,  disinterested 
view  which  on  all  occasions  he  would  take  of  his  own  charac- 
ter and  position,  as  of  a  third  person,  enabled  him  in  all  sim- 
plicity to  accept  the  estimate  of  others  concerning  himself, 
and  to  acquiesce  in  a  change  in  many  ways  so  alien  to  his 
habits  and  feelings.  On  the  following  day  he  saw  the  Indian 
Minister,  whose  brief  words  dwelt  in  his  memory  as  contain- 
ing in  a  short  compass  the  extent  of  his  opportunities  and  re- 
sponsibilities :  '  I  believe  that  in  appointing  you  I  have  done 
the  best  for  the  interests  of  India,  the  Church  of  England,  and 
of  Christianity.'  These  words  long  dwelt  in  Cotton's  mind. 
He  kept  them  before  him  as  what  his  episcopate  should  be, 
and  we  may  now  fairly  say  that  it  was  an  estimate  which  his 
episcopate  did  not  disappoint.1'  A  friend  has  just  told  me 
that,  taking  coffee  one  day  at  a  coffee-house  in  Ceylon,  two 
men  entered  the  room  and  joined  him  in  the  meal.  They 
were  dressed  as  laymen,  and  proved  very  pleasant  compan- 
ions. He  happened  to  mention  that  the  Metropolitan  of  In- 
dia was  expected  in  the  diocese  of  Colombo,  and  then  one  of 
them  introduced  himself  to  him  as  the  Bishop  of  Calcutta. 
It  was  a  strange,  out-of-the-way  meeting-place.  My  friend,  a 
missionary  —  and  Cotton  was  not  always  popular  with  mis- 
sionaries— thought  him  a  wise  and  good  man. 

The  story  of  Cotton's  remarkable  death  will  be  remember- 
ed. The  bishop's  body  was  never  recovered  after  he  had  lost 
his  footing  on  the  float  and  had  been  precipitated  into  the 
river.  Yet  I  know  of  an  officer  who  lost  a  signet  ring  in  the 
same  stream.  He  immediately  affixed  a  pole  to  mark  the 


CRITICAL    "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE.  53 

spot,  employed  a  diver,  and  recovered  the  ring.  One  would 
have  thought  a  human  body  would  have  been  more  easily  re- 
coverable. It  is  singular  that  on  the  morning  of  the  day  on 
which  he  perished  he  had  been  consecrating  a  cemetery,  and 
had  said  "  that  departed  souls  suffered  no  injury  if  their  bod- 
ies were  left  in  a  desert  place,  or  on  a  field  of  battle,  or  in 
any  other  way  were  unable  to  receive  the  rites  of  burial." 

I  think  there  are  very  few  people — and  the  fact  is  suffi- 
ciently remarkable — who  can  look  back  upon  their  lives  with- 
out seeing  that  there  has  been  some  time  or  other  in  which 
they  have  incurred  the  peril  of  a  sudden,  violent  death.  There 
is  a  curious  story  told  of  a  man  who  came  on  the  field  of  bat- 
tle. The  Duke  of  Wellington  remonstrated  with  him,  and 
the  gentleman  replied  that  his  Grace  was  in  the  same  peril. 
"Yes,"  said  the  duke,  "but  I  am  doing  my  duty."  It  was 
just  at  this  moment  that  a  ball  struck  the  unfortunate  man 
dead.  We  seem  to  be  taught  by  such  instances  that  there  is 
"a  time  to  be  born  and  a  time  to  die,"  and  that  while  change 
and  chance  happen  to  all  men,  there  are  laws  in  these  changes 
and  chances,  not  indeed  clearly  visible — at  times  indeed  ap- 
pearing to  act  with  odd  caprice— but  in  the  great  emergen- 
cies of  life  manifesting  an  influence  overruled  for  good. 

Many  curious  instances  of  individual  good  fortune  might 
be  given.  Some  time  ago  there  was  a  paragraph  in  the  news- 
papers, which  I  believe  was  correct,  stating  that  an  old  lady, 
childless  and  friendless,  suddenly  made  up  her  mind  to  leave 
a  large  property  to  the  children  of  some  chemist  or  green- 
grocer at  whose  shop  she  had  always  received  great  civility. 
It  is  worth  noting  that  civility  has  always  had  luck  as  an  ally. 
There  is  the  story  told  of  some  gentleman  who,  on  a  battle- 
field, happening  to  bow  with  much  grace  to  some  officer  who 
addressed  him,  a  cannon-ball  just  went  through  his  hair,  and 
took  of?  the  head  of  the  other  one.  The  officer,  when  he  saw 


54 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


his  marvelous  escape,  justly  observed  that  a  man  never  lost 
by  politeness.  Another  curious  story  of  luck  on  a  battle- 
field is,  I  believe,  perfectly  authentic.  A  ball  passed  straight 
through  a  man's  body,  and  the  man  recovered.*  Thus  much 
is  not  unparalleled,  but  there  was  something  more,  highly  cu- 
rious and  lucky.  The  man  was  consumptive,  and  had  formed 
tubercles.  The  ball  carried  away  the  tubercles,  and  the  man 
recovered,  not  only  from  the  wound,  but  from  the  consump- 
tion. 

I  myself  knew  a  man  who  had  been  a  poor  Cornish  miner, 
and,  like  so  many  of  his  class,  had  been  forced  to  emigrate. 
He  was  long  in  Peru,  but  all  his  attempts  to  get  on  seemed 
utterly  to  fail.  At  last,  when  he  was  about  to  give  up  in  de- 
spair, he  suddenly  came  upon  a  vein  of  the  purest  silver. 
He  returned  to  the  west  country,  where  he  purchased  one  of 
its  largest  and  best  estates.  He  took  me  over  his  magnifi- 
cent grounds,  and  told  me  what  he  had  been  able  to  do  for 
good  causes  dear  to  his  heart.  His  income  had  been  returned 
for  that  year  at  sixty  thousand  pounds.  I  was  told  of  a  cu- 
rious gleam  of  romance  in  this  man's  life.  He  had  been  en- 
gaged to  a  poor  girl  before  he  emigrated,  and  on  his  return 
he  dressed  himself  in  his  old  working  clothes  and  went  to  the 

*  It  might  be  thought  that  there  is  nothing  more  capricious  than  the 
billet  of  a  bullet,  but  even  this  chance  has  a  calculable  element  Mr.  Gal- 
ton  ("  Hereditary  Genius")  says  :  The  chance  of  a  man  being  struck  by 
accidental  shots  is  in  proportion  to  his  sectional  area — that  is,  to  his  shad- 
ow on  a  neighboring  wall,  cast  by  a  distant  light,  or  to  his  height  multi- 
plied into  his  natural  breadth.  However,  it  is  equally  easy,  and  more  con- 
venient, to  calculate  from  the  better-known  data  of  his  height  and  weight. 
One  man  differs  from  another  in  being  more  or  less  tall,  and  more  or  less 
thick-set.  It  is  unnecessary  to  consider  depth  (of  chest,  for  example)  as 
well  as  width,  for  the  two  go  together.  Let  h  —  a  man's  height,  w  =  his 
weight,  b  =  his  average  breadth,  taken  in  any  direction  we  please,  but  it 
must  be  in  the  same  direction  for  all.  Then  his  weight,  w,  varies  as  h  &3, 
and  his  sectional  area  varies  as  h  i>,  or  as  V  h  X  /;  £",  or  as  V  h  w. 


CRITICAL   "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE. 


55 


poor  cottage,  where  he  found  his  old  love  unchanged  and  wel- 
coming him  back.     It  was  a  glad  surprise  next  day. 

There  once  lived  a  man  in  the  west  of  England — the  story 
is  well  known  there — who  took  a  thousand  shares  in  a  mine, 
and  never  had  to  pay  more  than  a  pound  apiece  for  them ; 
and  on  those  shares  he  lived  sumptuously,  and  out  of  the  in- 
come of  those  shares  he  bought  an  estate  for  a  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds,  and,  finally,  he  sold  those  shares  for  half-a-mill- 
ion  of  money.  There  is  a  man  in  Berkshire  who  has  got  a 
park  with  a  walled  frontage  of  seven  miles,  and  he  tells  of  a 
beautiful  little  operation  which  made  a  nice  little  addition  to 
his  fortune.  He  was  in  Australia  when  the  first  discoveries 
of  gold  were  made.  The  miners  brought  in  their  nuggets, 
and  took  them  to  the  local  banks.  The  bankers  were  a  little 
nervous  about  the  business,  uncertain  about  the  quality  of  the 
gold,  and  waiting  to  see  its  character  established.  This  man 
had  a  taste  for  natural  sciences,  and  knew  something  about 
metallurgy.  He  tried  each  test,  solid  and  fluid,  satisfied  him- 
self of  the  quality  of  the  gold,  and  then,  with  all  the  money  he 
had  or  could  borrow,  he  bought  as  much  gold  as  might  be, 
and  showed  a  profit  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  in  the 
course  of  a  day  or  two.  It  is  to  be  observed  here  that  what 
we  call  luck  is  resolvable  very  often  into  what  is  really  ob- 
servation and  knowledge,  and  a  happy  tact  in  applying  them 
when  a  sudden  opportunity  arises.  The  late  Joseph  Hume 
was  a  happy  instance  of  this.  He  went  out  to  India,  and 
while  he  was  still  a  young  man  he  accumulated  a  consider- 
able fortune.  He  saw  that  hardly  any  about  him  knew  the 
native  languages,  so  he  applied  himself  to  the  hard  work  of 
mastering  them,  and  turned  the  knowledge  to  most  profitable 
account.  On  one  occasion,  when  all  the  gunpowder  had 
failed  the  British  army,  he  succeeded  in  scraping  together  a 
large  amount  of  the  necessary  materials,  and  manufactured  it 


5  6  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

for  our  troops.  When  he  returned  to  England  he  canvassed 
with  so  much  ability  and  earnestness  for  a  seat  in  the  East 
India  Directorate,  that  he  might  carry  out  his  scheme  of  re- 
form, that,  though  he  failed  to  get  the  vote  of  a  certain  large 
proprietor  of  stock,  he  won  his  daughter's  heart,  and  made  a 
prosperous  marriage.  Marriage  is,  after  all,  the  luckiest  bit 
of  luck  when  it  is  all  it  should  be.  When  Henry  Baring,  the 
late  Lord  Ashburton,  traveled  in  America — not  merely  dilet- 
tante traveling,  but,  like  Lord  Milton  in  our  days,  piercing  into 
untraveled  wilds,  meeting  only  a  stray,  enthusiastic  naturalist, 
like  Audubon — he  made  his  marriage  with  Miss  Bingham,  and 
so  consolidated  the  American  business  of  the  great  house  of 
Baring.  In  an  international  point  of  view  this  was  a  happy 
marriage,  for  in  after  years  it  gave  him  a  peculiar  facility  for 
concluding  the  great  Ashburton  treaty.  When  young  Thesi- 
ger  gave  up  the  trade  of  midshipman,  I  dare  say  some  kind 
friends  pronounced  him  a  failure ;  but  no  one  would  say  that 
of  Lord  Chancellor  Chelmsford.  There  was  another  man 
who  became  a  British  peer  through  circumstances  full  of  luck 
for  the  country,  but  which  he  doubtless  always  considered  of 
direst  unluck  to  himself.  A  quiet,  happy  country  gentleman 
was  Mr.  Graham,  with  abundant  means  and  healthful  tastes,  a 
handsome  estate  and  handsome  wife.  There  is  a  tale  of  his 
prowess  related  about  his  wife.  They  were  at  Edinburgh, 
and  were  going  to  a  great  ball,  when,  to  her  infinite  annoy- 
ance, she  found  that  she  had  left  her  jewel-case  behind  her. 
The  distance  was  sixty  or  seventy  miles,  and  it  was  not  many 
hours  before  the  ball  was  to  come  off.  Graham  took  a  fleet 
horse,  and  at  the  top  of  his  speed  rode  away  homeward  in 
search  of  the  jewel-case.  He  did  his  ride  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  in  marvelously  short  time,  and  the  ornaments  were 
in  time  for  the  ball.  When  the  wife,  for  whose  comfort  and 
pleasure  he  had  so  chivalrously  acted,  died,  Mr.  Graham 


CRITICAL    "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE.  57 

inconsolable.  To  alleviate  his  deep-seated  melancholy  he 
joined  the  army  as  a  volunteer.  Then  commenced  his  splen- 
did career  as  a  soldier,  in  which  he  proved  himself  one  of  the 
most  efficient  and  gallant  of  Wellington's  lieutenants,  and 
fought  his  way  to  pension  and  peerage.  Such  was  the  turn- 
ing-point in  the  history  of  the  late  Lord  Lynedoch. 

There  are  some  cases  where  in  a  critical  conjuncture  of  cir- 
cumstances there  almost  seems  a  direct  intervention.  Some 
instances  might  be  given  from  the  long  and  curious  list  of 
tales  about  enlistment  in  the  army.  Thus  we  have  a  curious 
story  about  Mr.  Wickham,  the  father  of  the  eminent  diploma- 
tist. He  was  determined  to  be  a  soldier,  but  his  grandfather 
could  not  endure  the  idea.  He  ran  away  and  enlisted  in  the 
service  of  Piedmont.  He  was  one  day  standing  sentinel  at 
the  gate  of  Alexandria,  when  two  men  of  rank  whom  he  had 
known  presented  themselves  with  their  passports.  For  the 
sake  of  the  joke  young  Wickham  could  not  resist  giving  them 
a  military  salute.  One  of  them,  Sir  Charles  Cotton,  immedi- 
ately recognized  him,  and  stayed  the  whole  day  in  Alexandria 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  engaging  him  to  write  to  friends,  and 
with  great  difficulty  persuaded  the  young  man  to  do  so.  His 
grandfather  gave  way,  and  procured  him  a  commission  in  the 
Guards,  and  the  man  who  might  have  perished  as  a  common 
soldier  in  foreign  service  became  an  honored  and  active  mag- 
istrate and  country  gentleman,  and  the  father  of  one  of  the 
most  useful  of  our  public  servants.  Still  more  remarkable 
was  the  case  of  Coleridge,  who,  having  enlisted  as  a  common 
soldier,  wrote  some  lines  in  Latin  which  drew  the  attention  of 
his  superior  officer,  who  procured  his  release.  Sometimes 
the  "intervention"  assumes  a  character  which  hardly  any 
one  would  shrink  from  terming  strictly  providential.  Thus 
at  the  commencement  of  Washington's  military  career,  a  sol- 
dier in  the  enemy's  army  was  on  the  point  of  picking  him  off 

C2 


58  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

when  he  was  totally  unaware  of  his  danger.  Thrice  he  raised 
his  finger  to  the  trigger,  and  thrice  by  an  uncontrollable  im- 
pulse he  forbore  to  fire.  There  was  a  remarkable  retributive 
kind  of  Providence  in  the  case  of  Sir  John  Hawkins,  the  fa- 
mous seaman  in  the  days  of  great  Elizabeth.  He  it  was  who, 
in  an  evil  day  for  the  English  race,  first  inaugurated  the  slave- 
trade.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  Sir  John's  own  son  was 
taken  prisoner  by  a  Barbary  corsair,  and  he  died  broken- 
hearted through  grief. 

Similarly  in  matters  relating  to  the  inner  life.  There  are 
certain  books  which  to  certain  men  have  proved  a  spiritual 
and  mental  crisis.  Thus  one  hears  of  a  man  having  his  whole 
course  of  life  altered  through  reading  Scott's  "  Force  of  Truth." 
In  religious  biography  we  frequently  meet  instances  in  which 
the  perusal  of  some  volume  has  been  a  turning-point  in  life. 
In  the  lives  of  quiet  thinkers,  men  who  pass  apparently  un- 
eventful lives,  that  are  almost  barren  for  biographical  pur- 
poses, the  leading  events  of  their  history  are  the  sudden 
thoughts  that  strike  them  ;  the  books  they  read  which  open- 
ed up  avenues  of  intellectual  interest,  and  conducted  them 
into  lines  of  separate  investigation.  The  "moment"  may 
have  passed  unnoticed  by  the  world,  and  they  may  have  a  dif- 
ficulty in  fixing  it  for  themselves,  but  it  may  be  a  crisis  of 
spiritual  and  intellectual  history — the  best  kind  of  history 
after  all. 

There  are  moments,  too,  which  are  those  of  supreme  import 
— moments  of  keen  temptation,  unhappy  doubt,  intense  sor- 
row— moments  when  men  have  gone  as  in  very  agony  out  of 
themselves  to  the  Eternal  Throne  of  God,  seeking  for  a  teach- 
ing, a  help,  a  consolation  that  this  earth  would  be  powerless 
to  afford.  Then  there  has  been  some  solemn  moment  in 
which  a  deep,  grave  resolve  has  been  made,  in  which  the  res- 
olution has  been  steadily  formed  to  make  some  great  act  of 


CRITICAL   "MOMENTS'"    OF  LIFE. 


59 


self-denial ;  to  abandon  some  evil  habit ;  to  conquer  some 
overmastering  temptation.  The  recollection  of  such  a  mo- 
ment is  potent  to  the  last ;  such  a  moment  is  a  true  landmark 
in  any  human  history,  and  has  served  to  shape  and  develop 
the  powers  of  the  soul.  In  the  moral  life  there  frequently 
comes  some  moment  which  is  the  very  centre  of  a  life's  his- 
tory. A  temptation  has  gradually  been  exerting  its  fascinat- 
ing influence  over  a  man's  mind,  and  the  temptation  is  ob- 
taining an  increasing  force.  The  soul  has  long  resisted,  but 
the  resistance  shows  a  diminishing  strength.  The  hour  comes 
when  the  power  of  the  temptation  and  the  power  of  the  resist- 
ance seem  closely  balanced.  We  are  now  reminded  of  the 
picture  of  the  Devil  playing  at  chess  with  a  man  for  his  soul. 
Then,  by  some  mighty  impulse,  the  soul  makes  election,  al- 
though how  that  election  was  determined  we  can  not  say. 
All  possible  interests  hang  perchance  upon  the  balance  of  a 
moment.  Perhaps  the  leap  into  the  abyss  was  then  made; 
perhaps  by  a  strong  convulsive  effort  the  man  tore  himself 
from  the  side  of  the  precipice,  and  found  himself  safe  on  the 
spacious  table-lands.  This  is  that  turning-point  of  the  habits 
of  which  I  have  spoken.  In  the  one  case  there  was  hence- 
forth a  gradual  deterioration — who  is  there  who  knows  Lon- 
don well  who  can  not  count  up  such  mournful  instances  ? — 
and  in  the  other  case,  the  man  has  burst  away  from  the  en- 
circling chains,  and  has  felt  that  he  has  been  able  to  climb 
out  of  lonely  hell. 

And  not  only  are  there  such  terrific  moments  of  conflict, 
but  there  are  quiet,  happy  spots  of  life,  on  which  the  mind's 
eye  may  rest  evermore  with  freshness  and  relief — green  past- 
ures and  waters  of  comfort,  to  use  that  simple,  touching  em- 
blem with  which  the  King  of  Israel  recalled  his  boyhood's 
shepherd  life.  The  Caliph  in  the  story  scored  up  eleven  hap- 
py days.  I  wonder  whether  that  eleven  was  in  excess  or  in 


60  TUR.Vl.Vu  rOINTS  IN  LIFE. 

deficiency  of  the  average.  Such  days  of  perfect  bliss  are  al- 
together abnormal,  and  after  a  time  we  simply  cease  to  ex- 
pect them.  The  purple  light  of  youth,  the  gay  hues  of  ro- 
mance and  splendid  possibilities  die  off  into  the  light  of  com- 
mon day.  We  know  what  life  has  to  give,  and  what  it  can 
not  give.  We  cease  to  expect  from  travel  or  variety  or  ad- 
venture any  thing  that  in  any  perceptible  degree  will  mate- 
rially move  and  influence  us.  To  some  men  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge  and  ideas — to  others,  their  advance  in  material 
prosperity — to  others,  the  gradual  purifying  and  strengthen- 
ing of  the  inner  life — becomes  the  great  field  wherein  their 
powers  and  aspirations  are  to  be  exercised.  But  in  the  gray 
light  of  the  long  colorless  afternoon  it  may  delight  at  times  to 
turn  anew  to  the  earlier  pages  of  life,  and  recall  those  pas- 
sages which  gave  emotions  of  delight  and  surprise — those 
moments  which  summed  up  eras  in  the  past,  and  proved 
starting-points  for  the  future.  It  is  a  blessed  provision  of 
our  nature  that  the  mind  forgets  its  sorrow  and  remembers  its 
joy.  Though  the  iron  may  enter  into  the  soul,  yet  nature  will 
heal  those  wounds,  save  for  the  memorial  scar ;  and  though 
the  pillars  of  our  hopes  be  shattered,  yet  around  those  broken 
bases  there  gather  the  wild  flowers  and  the  clinging  moss 
which  veil  deformity  with  beauty. 

I  wonder  whether  a  man  might  be  allowed  to  quote  him- 
self. Thus  it  was  some  ten  years  ago  that  I  wrote  down  some 
memorial  thought  or  moments  in  life,  calling  them  the  "  Sun- 
day Evening,"  referring  to  those  quiet,  sacred  hours  which  any 
man  desiring  to  be  wise  would  fain  secure  for  himself,  and 
which  often  bring  him  into  musing  recollection  of  the  past, 
and  surely  also  of  clear  anticipations  for  the  future. 

"  May  I  not,  with  a  glad  mind,  thank  God  for  many  happy 
evenings  which  for  their  outward  charm,  and  their  relation  to 
the  inward,  sacred  history  of  the  soul  and  mind,  are  to  me  as 


CRITICAL    "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE.  61 

memorable  as  any  most  striking  exterior  event  of  life  ?  That 
evening  when  through  deepening  twilight  I  passed  on  through 
Rydal  and  Grasmere — that  glorious  evening  on  Loch  Katrine, 
when  the  rich  gold  of  sunset  mingled  with  the  rich  gold  of 
autumn  leaves,  in  the  walk  past  Ellen's  Isle — that  evening, 
solitary  and  eventful,  when  from  the  casement  of  the  chateau 
where  I  dwelt  I  gazed  on  the  broad  Rhine  and  the  vine-clad 
heights — that  evening  when  I  first  sailed  the  still  waters  of 
Lugano,  or  that  when  at  midnight  I  looked  upon  solemn 
Maggiore,  or  that  when,  having  sailed  down  the  lake  of  Como, 
I  came  near  and  first  beheld  the  noble  Cathedral  of  Milan — 
that  evening  when,  having  wished  the  Superior  of  the  hospice 
of  the  Simplon  farewell,  past  crag  and  waterfall  and  piny  for- 
est I  descended  the  precipitous  pass — that  evening  when  with 
kindly  friends  I  floated  past  Venetian  palaces,  beneath  skies 
of  rare,  pale  loveliness  reflected  on  the  Adriatic  waters !  I  re- 
member, and  evermore  will  remember  all  these,  and  as  a  miser 
counts  over  jewels  and  gold  in  vacant  hours,  in  the  '  sessions 
of  sweet,  silent  thought'  I  surround  myself  with  the  imagery 
of  these  unforgotten  things.  But  there  are  memories  more 
precious  still,  and  these  are  connected  with  English  soil,  and 
the  English  Sunday  evening. 

"  Let  me  too,  then,  have  my  hour  of  reveries,  and  let  me 
now  summon  to  memory  two  pure  recollections  of  the  Sunday 
evening.  One  shall  be  of  summer  in  the  country,  and  one  of 
winter  in  our  great  city. 

"It  is  a  country  district,  where  the  wild  moorland  is  in 
some  parts  crowded  by  the  dense  population  which  our  man- 
ufacturing genius  has  evoked  ;  where  the  scenery  once  was 
beautiful,  and  where  strange  gleams  of  beauty  still  interrupt 
the  sordid  and  common-place  features  of  the  landscape,  by 
walk,  by  shaded  brook,  by  tufted  heights,  by  an  expanse  of 
fair  water.  The  church,  around  which  the  roses  in  profusion 


G_>  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

cluster,  and  before  which  stretches  the  smooth,  green,  level 
sward,  sanctifies  and  adorns  the  landscape.  The  late  sum- 
mer sun  is  slowly  westering ;  softly  through  the  oriel  windows 
the  rays  fall  on  the  kneeling  villagers,  and  fling  a  saint-like 
glory  on  some  dear  head.  The  cadence  of  a  noble  voice  is 
heard  in  silvery  tones,  '  Lighten  our  darkness,  we  beseech 
thee,  O  Lord ;'  and  then  the  simple  hymn,  perchance,  in 
which  our  large,  and  as  yet  unbroken,  household  circle  join. 
Such  is  the  memorial  imagery  of  simple  country  days,  before 
later  years  brought  a  wider  knowledge  and  a  sadder  wisdom. 
And  now  a  glance  at  another  Sunday  evening,  in  the  new 
London  life.  I  am  in  the  precincts  of  the  mighty  Abbey.  I 
leave  my  friends,  with  whom  I  had  been  conversing,  in  the 
venerable  close ;  and,  threading  my  way  through  the  quiet 
cloisters,  I  pass  through  a  side  door,  and  suddenly  a  won- 
drous scene  reveals  itself  to  me.  Jets  of  foliated  gas  emerge 
from  the  antique  pillars,  thousands  throng  the  vast  nave,  the 
crash  of  massive  music  breaks  forth,  which  resounds  to  the 
dim,  unlighted  recesses  of  the  far  east  of.  the  Minster.  It  is 
one  of  the  earliest  Sunday  evening  services  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  that  new  feature  in  the  ever-young  life  of  the  Church 
of  England.  You  remember  it,  too,  but  perhaps  you  can  not 
have  such  associations  with  it  as  I  have.  And  so  it  is  that 
on  these  Sunday  evenings  both  retrospect  and  anticipation 
are  busy.  We  think  of  our  lost  friends,  of  those  who  were 
once  the  most  familiar  forms  in  our  daily  life,  who  have  now 
passed  away,  living  now  in  other  lands,  and  beneath  other 
stars ;  perchance,  '  by  the  long  wash  of  Australian  seas ;'  or 
severed  from  us  by  inconstancy  or  falsehood  or  misfortune, 
or  even — a  kinder  separation — by  the  cold  hand  that  has  si- 
lenced the  lip,  and  laid  the  finger  on  the  eyelid,  but  has  not 
left  us  without  a  hope.  As  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  says— 
the  brother  of  that  great  saint  and  poet,  George  Herbert — in 


CRITICAL    "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE.  63 

lines,  the  first  example  of  that  peculiar  metre  which  '  In  Me- 
moriam'  has  rendered  so  familiar : 

'  These  eyes  again  thine  eyes  shall  see, 
And  hands  again  thine  hands  enfold, 
And  all  chaste  pleasures  to  be  told, 
Shall  with  us  everlasting  be.' 

"  That  company  of  the  loved  and  lost  which  was  at  first  so 
sparse,  a  two  or  three — how  the  numbers  increase,  how  the 
voices  swell !  Like  the  sand  in  the  hour-glass,  they  hurry 
into  the  vacant  space  ;  they  leave  us,  our  sweet  friends  ;  they 
no  longer  are  on  our  muster-roll ;  as  silent  shadows  they  steal 
off  into  yonder  ghostly  camp.  That  hour  is  coming  to  us,  my 
friends.  Like  a  pilgrim,  we  every  night  pitch  our  tent  a  day's 
march  nearer  home.  We  know  it  well.  For  the  last  time  we 
shall  listen  to  those  sweet  vesper  chimes,  and  for  the  last  time 
watch  the  soft  splendor  of  that  setting  sun.  And  then  for  us, 
in  years  which  we  shall  not  see,  some  kindly  friend  in  melan- 
choly musing  some  such  hour  as  this  will  have  for  us,  per- 
chance, that  sorrowful  recollection  which  we  ourselves  extend 
to  those  who  have  'gone  before.' 

"  Does  this  musing  appear  melancholy  and  regretful  ?  Not 
altogether  such,  I  trust,  for,  in  very  truth,  the  musings  of  Sun- 
day evening  have  their  lessons  of  calm  and  hope  and  conso- 
lation. They  should  teach  us  to  look  back  upon  the  past 
without  regret,  and  forward  to  the  future  without  a  sigh.  If 
our  dead  friends  can  still  think  and  feel  for  us,  at  such  an 
hour  as  this  their  eternal  regards  may  be  fixed  on  us.  If 
there  are  ministering  spirits  who  in  angelic  mission  attend  on 
us,  at  such  an  hour  we  may  listen  to  their  heavenly  whisper- 
ings. The  Eternal  Spirit  that  strives  with  men,  and  would 
fain  make  their  lives  and  deaths  blissful,  is  tenderly  plead- 
ing with  the  poor,  erring  human  spirit  that  still  clings  to  the 
broken  links  of  perishable  things. 


64  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

"  It  is  now  the  Ave  hour  of  the  Sunday  evening.  Such  is 
the  hour  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  God ;  read  some  glorious 
page  in  which  the  burning  hope  of  better  things  translates 
sorrow  into  serenity.  Such  is  the  hour  of  prayer ;  pray  for 
your  native  land  and  for  those  you  love,  pray  for  forgiveness 
and  for  strength,  pray  for  resolution  to  live  a  calm  and  Chris- 
tian life,  pray  for  those  who  have  your  sorrows  without  your 
hopes.  And  now  to  rehearse  the  last  scene  of  all,  by  sink- 
ing into  silence  and  forgetfulness.  Yet  for  a  moment  pause. 
Withdraw  the  curtain,  and  view  the  large  night  looming  in  its 
wintry  sky  over  this  great  London.  See  how  the  multitudi- 
nous stars  come  out,  army  upon  army  of  the  great  hosts  of 
heaven,  and  remember  how  the  music  of  the  herald  angels  of 
Bethlehem  is  still  lingering  upon  our  ears.  May  not  our  last 
thoughts  be  of  the  '  many  mansions'  of  our  Father's  house, 
of  which  eternal  truth  has  assured  us,  and  promised  to  seek- 
ers in  them  a  home  ?" 

Bishop  Latimer  used  to  interrupt  a  discourse  by  saying, 
"  And  now  I'll  tell  you  a  fable."  I  will  conclude  this  chap- 
ter by  telling  a  story  of  an  Important  Ten  Minutes,  which 
possesses  the  advantage  of  being  quite  true. 

Piccadilly  was  at  its  liveliest  and  busiest.  The  continuous 
London  roar  rolled  steadily  on.  Carriages,  horsemen,  vehi- 
cles of  all  sorts  hurried  past.  By  Apsley  House,  at  the  en- 
trance to  Hyde  Park,  the  crush  of  carriages  was  especially 
great.  Various  glances  were  thrown  at  the  historic  mansion 
of "  the  duke,"  as  all  called  his  Grace  of  Wellington,  as  if 
there  was  no  other,  and  never  would  be  any  other  duke  than 
that  duke.  I  imagine  in  that  popular  notion  people  were  tol- 
erably right.  I  am  speaking  of  the  days  when  the  duke  was 
still  living  and  at  the  summit  of  his  popularity.  Many,  I  say, 


CRITICAL   "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE.  65 

were  the  glances  at  those  iron-clad  shutters  which  the  duke 
found  it  necessary  to  employ  at  the  riotous  times  of  the  Re- 
form Bill,  and  which  he  grimly  retained  as  a  lasting  memento 
of  popular  favor.  Among  the  pedestrians  there  was  one  whose 
especial  business  it  was  that  morning  to  call  upon  the  Duke 
of  Wellington.  He  will  enter  Apsley  House  as  a  well-known 
and  honored  visitant.  With  very  good  reason  will  he  be  re- 
ceived as  such,  for  Colonel  Beckwith  has  long  served  under 
the  duke,  and  is  an  old  Peninsular  officer.  He  is  disabled 
now — we  see  that  he  has  lost  a  leg.  Very  proud,  indeed,  may 
he  be  of  that  honorable  loss.  The  limb  was  left  at  Waterloo, 
where  the  soldier  had  bravely  fought  for  our  English  hearts 
and  homes. 

The  colonel  was  shown  into  the  library  of  Apsley  House, 
and  sat  down.  The  duke  was  very  much  engaged,  but  would 
see  him  presently.  Could  he  wait  ten  minutes?  Colonel 
Beckwith  resigned  himself  to  the  delay,  and  waited  for  some 
ten  minutes  or  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  On  those  few  minutes 
depended  the  multiplied  events  of  many  years.  The  colonel, 
in  after-life,  used  often  to  speak  of  that  brief  space  of  time  as 
the  turning  crisis  of  his  existence. 

Perhaps  Colonel  Beckwith  had  heard  of  a  certain  remark- 
able saying  of  Napoleon's,  and,  as  an  old  soldier,  had  prob- 
ably seen  it  realized.  "  Although  a  battle  may  last  a  whole 
day,"  Napoleon  used  to  say, "  there  were  generally  some  ten 
minutes  in  which  the  fate  of  the  engagement  was  practically 
decided."  How  often  this  is  seen  in  life !  In  the  course  of 
a  few  minutes  some  thought  is  conceived,  some  deed  commit- 
ted, which  tinges  the  color  of  the  whole  remainder  of  an  ex- 
istence. So  it  was  to  be  now. 

Before  I  proceed  with  the  narrative  I  must  stay  to  give  one 
fact  respecting  the  antecedent  history  of  this  honored  soldier. 
Without  knowing  it  we  should  be  at  a  loss  to  understand  the 
circumstances  that  ensued. 


66  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

Colonel  Beckwith  was  a  truly  religious  man.  He  kept  close 
to  his  religion  with  soldierly  simplicity  and  good  faith.  Aftei 
the  great  field  of  Waterloo  he  had  stayed  in  an  invalided  state 
at  Brussels,  a  maimed  and  disabled  man.  Then  it  was  that 
he  read  the  Bible.  He  read  it  earnestly  and  diligently.  Ah, 
how  many  of  us  require  to  be  laid  upon  a  bed  of  languor  be- 
fore we  will  patiently  give  heed  to  those  sacred  pages !  Gen- 
eral Beckwith — for  he  reached  that  rank — must  have  blessed 
this  time,  for  it  was  then  that  he  was  brought  to  God. 

How  should  Colonel  Beckwith  spend  the  ten  minutes  dur- 
ing which  he  was  to  wait  for  the  great  duke  ? 

We  have  already  said  that  he  was  in  the  library.  It  was, 
therefore,  a  natural  step  that  he  should  walk  up  to  the  book- 
shelves. His  eye  carelessly  wandered  over  the  titles  of  the 
volumes.  He  put  out  his  hand  and  took  the  first  that  offered. 
It  was  Gilly's  "  Waldenses."  For  ten  minutes  or  more  he  was 
absorbed  in  the  contents.  Then  a  servant  entered  the  library 
and  announced  that  the  duke  would  see  him  in  the  sitting- 
room.  The  illustrious  chief  and  his  distinguished  subaltern 
then  engaged  in  conversation,  and  shortly  afterward  General 
Beckwith  took  his  leave. 

The  remembrance  of  what  he  had  read  during  that  ten  min- 
utes spent  in  the  library  haunted  him.  At  least  he  accurately 
remembered  the  title  of  the  volume,  and  could  procure  it  at 
his  bookseller's.  He  did  so.  Who  was  the  author  ?  A  dig- 
nitary of  the  Church  of  England,  the  Very  Rev.  Dr.  Gilly, 
Dean  of  Durham.  He  was  so  greatly  excited  that  from  read- 
ing this  book  he  proceeded  to  read  every  other  book  connect- 
ed with  the  subject.  For  this  purpose  he  ransacked  every 
library  he  knew.  Finally,  was  it  not  possible  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  Dr.  Gilly,  the  author  of  that  remarkable  book 
which  he  had  devoured  so  ardently  in  the  library  of  Apsley 
House  ?  Certainly  it  was.  There  was  no  one  whom  the  kind 


CRITICAL   "MOMENTS"    OF  LIFE.  67 

dean  would  be  better  pleased  to  see  than  an  old  Waterloo 
soldier  who  wished  to  speak  to  him  on  his  favorite  subject. 
They  became  great  allies,  and  were  both  alike  ever  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  Waldenses. 

Another  thought  now  occurred  to  him.  Why  should  he  not 
cross  the  sea  and  the  mountains,  and  go  and  see  the  Walden- 
ses for  himself;  see  for  himself  that  beautiful  scenery,  and  by 
this  means  conceive  fully  in  his  mind  his  impressions  of  that 
strange  history  ?  He  was  a  man  without  any  ties.  The  great 
wars  were  all  over  now.  Europe  was  forever  safe  from  Na- 
poleon, and  the  soldier's  occupation  was  gone.  His  time  and 
his  means  were  entirely  his  own.  He  was  unmarried,  and, 
we  believe,  without  near  relatives. 

Accordingly,  in  the  summer  of  1827,  he  made  his  first  visit. 
He  was  rather  hampered  with  some  engagements  on  this  oc- 
casion, and  made  only  a  hurried  stay  of  three  or  four  days. 
Next  year,  however,  he  went  again,  and  stayed  three  months ; 
the  year  following,  six  months.  By-and-by  he  permanently 
established  himself  at  Torre. 

Closely  as  General  Beckwith  was  connected  with  the  Wal- 
denses, he  became  still  more  identified  with  them.  He  took 
a  wife  from  among  the  daughters  of  the  people.  He  was  then 
well  stricken  in  years,  and  it  might  have  been  questioned  how 
far  the  Alpine  maiden  would  suit  the  aged  English  gentleman 
and  soldier ;  but,  to  use  the  words  of  old  Isaac  Walton, "  the 
Eternal  Lover  of  mankind  made  them  happy  in  each  other's 
mutual  affection  and  compliance."  She  was  a  village  maid 
of  humble  origin,  but  well  educated  as  education  was  account- 
ed there,  and  he  lived  very  happily  with  her  during  the  re- 
maining eleven  years  of  his  life.  In  these  latter  days  he  had 
a  love  for  the  sea  that  equaled  his  love  for  the  mountains.  He 
was  fully  aware  of  the  important  sanitary  truth,  how  beneficial 


68  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

is  a  timely  change  of  air  and  residence.  The  sea-side  resi- 
dence which  he  selected  was  Calais.  He  went  there  so  reg- 
ularly and  stayed  ao  long  that  it  was  even  thought  the  coasts 
of  fair  France  were  estranging  him  from  the  valleys  of  Pied- 
mont. We  know  not  how  far  this  may  have  been  the  case, 
but  it  is  certain  that  in  his  last  illness  his  affection  for  his  Al- 
pine home  was  in  all  the  fullness  of  its  strength.  He  knew 
that  he  was  dying,  and  his  hope  was  that  he  might  die  among 
the  people.  In  extreme  weakness  he  turned  southward  and 
crossed  the  Alps,  that  he  might  lay  his  bones  in  beloved  Torre. 

At  Torre,  then,  he  gradually  declined  and  died,  amid  the 
tears  and  blessings  of  an  affectionate  and  grateful  population. 
He  left  this  world,  July  igth,  1862.  He  lies  buried  in  the 
church-yard  of  Torre,  and  for  generations  to  come  his  tomb 
will  be  pointed  out  to  the  passing  traveler.  Some  great  En- 
glishmen are  lastingly  identified  with  the  Vaudois  Protestants. 
Oliver  Cromwell  sent  through  his  Latin  secretary,  John  Milton, 
that  famous  dispatch  which  expostulated  on  their  behalf  with 
the  Duke  of  Savoy. 

King  William  the  Third,  in  a  treaty  with  Savoy,  inserted 
terms  which  greatly  ameliorated  their  condition.  But  even 
more  than  the  memory  of  the  great  Protector,  even  more  than 
the  memory  of  the  great  Protestant  deliverer,  will  the  memory 
of  General  Beckwith  be  cherished  in  these  valleys. 

Assuredly  his  is  the  record  of  a  great,  simple,  beneficent 
life  !  And  all  this  came  to  pass,  as  he  often  used  to  say,  from 
the  short  time  that  he  spent  in  looking  over  a  book  in  the  li- 
brary of  Apsley  House  while  waiting  to  see  the  great  duke ! 
Certainly  that  was  an  important  ten  minutes ! 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS.  69 


CHAPTER  IV. 

University    Careers. 

I  ADD  a  few  words  especially  on  the  subject  of  university 
careers,  inasmuch  as  the  university  is  to  an  immense  number 
of  men  essentially  a  great  turning-point  in  life,  and  because, 
when  different  schemes  for  university  extension  are  developed 
and  bear  fruit,  the  universities  will  become  more  than  ever 
national  institutions,  and  centres  of  intellectual  life  for  the  na- 
tion at  large.  I  am  hardly  sanguine  enough  to  believe  that 
the  time  will  ever  return  when,  as  in  the  days  of  Occam,  some 
thirty  thousand  students  will  troop  from  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try to  Oxford  as  the  gateway  of  all  knowledge.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  doubt  that  our  universities  are  now  in  a  transition 
state.  This  is  symbolized  by  the  demolition  and  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  collegiate  edifices  themselves  during  the  last  de- 
cade ;  by  the  new  examinations  that  have  been  instituted  ;  by 
the  constitution,  in  either  university,  of  the  new  class  of  un- 
attached students ;  by  schemes  for  making  the  universities 
schools  for  special  study  on  the  arts  and  sciences.  If  we 
could  look  into  the  Oxford  or  the  Cambridge  of  the  future, 
the  eyes  of  the  old  university  man,  already  sorely  dazzled  by 
changes  outward  and  inward  even  now  existing,  might  be- 
hold, not  without  infinite  trepidation,  an  expansion  and  met- 
amorphosis of  which  his  past  experience  could  hardly  suggest 
any  idea.  Any  discussion  of  university  life  must  relate  chief- 
ly to  the  historic  aspect  of  the  subject,  and  it  may  be  that, 
with  a  proverbial  slowness,  we  may  linger  long  before  the 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


transition  is  accomplished  ;  but  a  transition  is  in  store  for  us, 
and  we  may  hope  that  it  will  be  for  the  best. 

In  speaking  of  university  careers,  a  great  deal  depends  on 
the  conception  which  we  may  form  of  academical  success. 
Differences  of  opinion  depend  mainly  on  a  single  point,  name- 
ly, whether  a  successful  college  career  is  regarded  as  a  means 
to  an  end,  or  as  an  end  in  itself.  The  notion  of  a  successful 
university  career  usually  implies  a  first-class  and  a  fellowship ; 
and,  as  this  involves  a  modestly  substantial  income  and  a  not 
undistinguished  social  position,  such  a  career  is  looked  upon 
as  a  good  thing,  worthy  to  be  sought  for  its  own  sake.  With 
many  persons,  on  the  other  hand,  a  college  career,  however 
brilliant,  is  only  regarded  as  a  step  toward  ulterior  objects. 
The  real  aim  is  in  the  direction  of  the  church,  parliament,  or 
the  bar,  and  a  successful  career  at  college  is  looked  upon  as 
a  significant  omen  of  the  real  success  of  after-life.  There  are 
many  distinguished  men  now  living,  whose  names  are  familiar 
enough  to  those  who  habitually  handle  the  "  University  Calen- 
dar," who  have  amply  justified  any  prognostics  that  might  be 
drawn  from  early  eminence.  Christ  Church  has,  pre-eminent- 
ly, been  the  foster-parent  of  such  men ;  that  ancient  founda- 
tion having  given  to  the  world  a  long  line  of  illustrious  states- 
men, who  have  entered  the  House  of  Commons  with  a  brill- 
iant prestige  for  scholarship  and  ability.  High  university  hon- 
ors comprise,  however,  so  many  advantages  of  a  lucrative  kind 
that  they  excite  a  keen  competition  for  them  among  those 
with  whom  they  are  a  natural  object  of  desire.  One  result  is 
that  men  enter  the  university  at  a  somewhat  later  age  than 
was  formerly  the  case  ;  they  bring  up  a  larger  stock  of  knowl- 
edge than  they  once  used  to  do,  and  the  standard  of  the  hon- 
or-examination is  proportionately  raised.  It  was  once  possi- 
ble for  the  same  Cambridge  man  to  obtain  the  highest  place 
both  in  mathematics  and  classics ;  but  we  think  it  was  the 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS. 


late  Baron  Alderson,  who  was  one  of  the  very  few  remarka- 
ble men  thus  distinguished,  who  used  to  say  that  the  system 
of  examination  is  now  so  far  extended  that  it  is  impossible  for 
any  human  being  to  repeat  this  particular  kind  of  success. 
Men  at  present  run  for  the  great  university  prizes  under  a 
regular  training  system,  as  complete  and  as  scientific  as  any 
other  system  of  prize  competition.  There  is  now  established 
a  regular  migration  from  the  Scottish  to  the  English  universi- 
ties. Men  who  have  actually  taken  a  master-of-arts  degree 
at  Edinburgh  or  Glasgow  take  the  position  of  undergraduates 
who  have  only  just  discarded  their  jackets.  Those  who  know 
any  thing  of  Baliol  College,  Oxford,  or  of  St.  Peter's  College, 
Cambridge,  are  aware  of  the  great  extent  to  which  this  kind 
of  thing  is  carried.  Some  hardship  seems  involved,  by  this 
system,  on  younger  competitors  ;  but  then  older  men  pay  a 
penalty  in  being  proportionately  late  starters  in  the  great 
business  of  life.  However,  they  often  consider  that  they  have 
satisfactorily  performed  that  business  if  they  have  obtained 
that  academical  success  which  will  guarantee  them  a  modest, 
permanent  competence. 

The  competition  for  educational  honors  and  advantages, 
which  has  ordinarily  been  supposed,  with  justice,  to  commence 
at  the  university,  in  accordance  with  modern  notions  of  com- 
petition, has  been  pushed  back  to  a  still  earlier  age.  The  ad- 
vantages are  so  questionable  that  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
system  will  not  receive  any  further  extension.  Great  pecuni- 
ary advantages  are  now  attainable  by  mere  children  at  our 
great  public  schools.  A  very  juvenile  youngster  may  save  his 
father  many  hundred  pounds  by  gaining  a  place  on  the  foun- 
dation of  Eton  or  Winchester.  While  this  is  the  case,  we  can 
not  but  fear  that  forcing  establishments  will  gain  in  parental 
estimation,  and  many  a  young  head  and  heart  will  be  weighed 
down  by  a  burden  of  too  early  thought  and  care.  We  ques- 


72  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

tion,  also,  if  there  is  much  real  wisdom  in  playing  a  long  game 
instead  of  a  short  game.  The  prematurely  clever  child,  who 
is  extraordinarily  successful  at  school,  will  probably  be  only 
an  ordinary  man,  with  no  special  success  at  college.  In  the 
same  way,  the  extraordinarily  clever  man  at  college  in  many 
instances  will  subsequently  shade  off  into  a  very  insignificant 
kind  of  being  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Among  the  crowds  of 
young  men  in  the  fast-fleeting  generations  of  the  university, 
there  are  many  who,  by  their  force  of  ability,  seconded  by 
only  moderate  application,  achieve  the  very  highest  degree  of 
college  success,  and  repeat  that  success,  on  a  still  broader 
scale,  in  the  world.  But,  beyond  these  instances,  it  appears 
perfectly  possible  to  crowd  into  a  few  years  the  intellectual 
labors  of  many  years,  and  to  impoverish  and  exhaust  the  men- 
tal soil  by  a  system  of  unfairly  high  farming.  Men  are  con- 
stantly met  with  who  sweep  the  universities  of  all  the  prizes 
which  it  is  in  the  power  of  those  great  corporations  to  bestow, 
and  who  find  that  their  subsequent  career  can  bear  no  kind 
of  comparison  with  that  brilliant  early  success.  They  have 
lost  the  fresh  spring  of  youthful  elasticity,  the  early  ardor  of 
intellectual  exertion.  The  mind  that  has  long  run  in  a  scho- 
lastic groove  acquires  a  kind  of  mental  immobility,  and  will 
not  easily  adapt  itself  to  the  untried  career  of  an  active  pro- 
fessional life.  Even  zealous  attempts  to  achieve  something 
of  the  kind  often  prove  real  failures,  and  the  college  don  who 
has  tried  to  renew  college  success  in  politics  or  at  the  bar 
frequently  falls  back  once  more  on  the  common-room  or  the 
combination-room,  and  takes  his  share  in  college  tuition  and 
the  emoluments  of  college  offices.  But  the  university  career 
which,  after  all,  is  confined  within  the  limits  of  the  university, 
is  not,  perhaps,  such  an  enviable  kind  of  success  that  it  should 
be  constantly  held  up  to  the  admiration  and  imitation  of  all 
those  who  are  starting  on  the  race  of  life. 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS. 


73 


Of  course,  here  as  elsewhere,  we  have  to  arbitrate  between 
different  orders  of  men,  and  different  kinds  of  successes.  It 
is  a  great  success  when  a  man  has  won  his  way  to  the  head- 
ship of  his  college,  with  a  clear  prospective  eye  to  bishopric 
or  deanery.  It  is  no  less  a  success  when  the  poor  scholar,  aft- 
er wading  through  difficult  waters,  has  obtained  a  college  fel- 
lowship, and  with  grateful,  contented  mind  waits  for  his  col- 
lege living.  His  horizon  may  be  narrow  and  bounded,  but  it 
is,  at  least,  satisfactorily  filled.  Still,  the  college  career,  which 
is  limited  and  bounded  by  college  objects,  is  often  fraught 
with  melancholy  considerations.  A  merely  merchantile  ele- 
ment is  often  introduced,  which  can  not  be  wholly  deprived 
of  a  despicable  character.  We  can  hardly  sympathize  with 
young  men  -who  are  always  eagerly  calculating  the  value  of 
scholarships  and  fellowships,  and  subordinate  eveiy  study 
to  the  question  whether  it  will  pay.  Things  are  often  bad 
enough  at  Oxford,  but  at  Cambridge  an  essentially  ignoble 
system  is  pursued  to  a  most  deleterious  extent.  It  is  often 
the  fault  of  parents,  who  tell  their  sons  that  they  must  look  to 
the  university  as  the  main  source  of  the  present  and  future 
subsistence.  We  have  heard  the  case  of  a  father  who  made 
his  two  sons  handsome  allowances,  with  the  understanding 
that,  after  they  took  their  degrees,  they  should  entirely  main- 
tain themselves.  We  feel  sure  that  nearly  all  our  readers  can 
recall  similar  instances.  In  this  particular  case,  one  of  the 
sons  went  mad ;  the  other,  with  broken  health,  won  a  fellow- 
ship, and,  naturally,  was  on  bad  terms  with  his  father  ever  aft- 
erward. The  training  system  at  Cambridge  is  carried  to  as 
high  a  degree  of  perfection  as  any  system  of  trainer  and  jockey 
can  be  carried.  The  Johnian  stables  are  particularly  cele- 
brated. Every  particular  of  diet,  rest,  and  exercise  is  sedu- 
lously attended  to.  The  reading  man  will  look  with  the  ut- 
most abhorrence  upon  the  feeding  man,  simply  because  the 

D 


74 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


feeding  will  interfere  with  the  reading.  He  will  also  look 
with  the  utmost  contempt  upon  the  man  who  dabbles  in  liter- 
ature, or  indulges  in  oratorical  flights  at  the  Union.  He  has 
no  notion  of  indulging  in  any  kind  of  intellectual  pursuit 
which  may,  in  the* least  degree,  divert  his  brain  from  the  lu- 
crative objects  on  which  it  is  fixed.  He  tramples  down  re- 
morselessly any  flowers  of  imagination  of  poetry  which  may 
appear  in  the  fresh  dawn  of  intellectual  life.  The  success 
aimed  at  is,  at  last,  achieved  ;  we,  of  course,  pass  over  the 
very  many  cases  in  which  success  has  been  all  but  achieved, 
and  grievous  disappointment  has  been  the  result.  The  victo- 
rious student,  in  due  time,  subsides  into  a  college  don,  who,  in 
his  own  kind  of  way,  is  the  most  spoiled  and  pampered  of 
men.  But  it  is  a  condition  of  things  in  which  an  advance  is 
not  easily  made,  and  where  the  first  flush  wears  off  into  a  dull 
kind  of  day.  The  undergraduate  may  admire  the  awful  state 
of  the  don,  but  the  don  must  often  envy  the  elasticity  and 
freshness  of  the  undergraduate.  Year  by  year  the  resident 
don  finds  the  list  of  his  friends  narrowing  within  an  ever  nar- 
rowing circle.  He  may  enjoy  travel  and  society,  but  there  is 
the  corroding  recollection  that  he  is  linked  to  his  college  po- 
sition, and  if  that  is  abandoned,  he  will  have  to  begin  life 
over  again.  The  men  whose  injudicious  oratory  and  litera- 
ture he  despised,  in  the  meantime  are,  perhaps,  obtaining 
name  and  position  in  public  life.  Very  often  the  don  takes 
a  college  living,  when  it  is  no  secret  that  he  has  but  scanty 
sympathy  with  the  sacred  work  to  which  he  is  devoting  him- 
self. 

It  is  a  common  thing  that,  when  such  a  man  has  attained 
all  that  the  university  can  give  him,  he  is  seized  with  an  ex- 
aggerated and  morbid  desire  to  get  married.  It  must  be 
owned  that  there  is  much  in  his  surroundings  to  encourage 
this  excessive  tendency  toward  connubiality.  All  material 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS.  75 

wants  are  amply  satisfied.  The  fellows  live  and  rule  like 
petty  kings.  Every  day  the  high  table  is  sumptuously  spread 
for  them,  without  any  effort  on  their  part;  and  costly  refec- 
tions, from  buttery  and  kitchen,  are  ready  at  any  moment. 
The  fellow  lives  in  comparative  luxury  and  idleness  ;  he  is 
surrounded  with  pictures  and  poetry  and  art;  he  is  often 
sensitive,  susceptible,  and  imaginative  to  the  highest  degree. 
We  have  very  rarely  known  a  fellow  of  a  college  who  was  not 
more  or  less  anxious  to  get  married.  Generally,  also,  these 
fellows  are  in  the  predicament  of  waiting  for  dead  men's  shoes, 
eagerly  expecting  the  lapse  of  the  college  living  which  will  en- 
able them  to  marry.  At  the  present  time,  the  wonderful  era 
has  arrived  when  fellows  of  college  are  allowed  to  marry. 
This  innovation  was  looked  upon  by  the  old  school  as  being 
of  the  most  alarming  kind  ;  and,  certainly,  there  is  something 
revolutionary  in  the  spectacle  of  the  venerated  college  grass- 
plat  being  converted  into  a  croquet-ground  by  the  wives  of 
the  fellows  and  their  feminine  belongings.  Still,  hitherto 
such  fellowships  have  almost  entirely,  or  entirely,  been  held 
by  those  who  are  professors,  or  whose  services  have  been 
found  to  be  absolutely  necessary  in  carrying  out  the  work  of 
college  tuition  ;  and  it  is  not  at  all  probable  that  such  a  per- 
mission will  be  generally  accorded  to  fellows.  One  effect  of 
such  regulations  would  be  that  there  would  be  fewer  vacan- 
cies in  fellowships,  and  the  chances  of  a  successful  university 
career  would  be  materially  abridged.  From  this  enforced 
celibacy,  or  other  causes,  fellows  of  colleges  are  often  restless, 
disappointed  men  ;  and,  truly,  the  grand  university  success 
often  turns  out  to  be  not  much  better  than  a  failure  and  a 
mistake. 

Still,  after  allowing  for  all  these  drawbacks,  there  is  a  worse 
kind  of  university  career.  There  are  university  careers  which 
fatally  progress  backward.  A  university  man  can  exemplify, 


76  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

to  any  extent,  the  art  of  sinking.  For  many  natures  the  uni- 
versity is  a  fiery  crucible,  which  searches  out  destructively 
worthlessness  and  vice.  It  is  a  trial  for  a  young  man  to  find 
himself  suddenly  ^in  unlimited  credit  at  the  wine-merchant's 
and  confectioner's,  and  with  full  power  to  gratify  any  baneful 
thought  of  self-indulgence  with  which  he  is  familiar.  The  de- 
fenses which  surround  him  are,  ordinarily,  very  slight.  The 
college  tutor,  who  is  sometimes  depicted  as  watching  over  his 
morals  and  endeavoring  to  exercise  on  his  behalf  a  legitimate 
influence  for  good,  is  a  being  who  is  not  ordinarily  to  be  dis- 
covered in  real  life.  The  undergraduate  is  generally  left  to 
the  brotherly  agency  of  the  proctor  and  his  bull-dogs.  If  a 
man  is  viciously  disposed,  the  descent  to  Avernus  is  as  easy 
as  possible  for  him.  A  little  social  or  home  influence  would 
be  a  good  thing  for  him,  but  general  society  is  limited  at  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge,  and  only  a  small  minority  of  men  make 
their  way  to  it.  As  it  is,  the  man  whose  career  is  of  a  down- 
ward tendency  speedily  familiarizes  himself  with  the  best  pro- 
vincial imitations  of  metropolitan  vice.  This  kind  of  career 
need  not  be  dwelt  upon,  for  it  has  been  often  described  by 
that  numerous  tribe,  the  writers  of  university  stories,  and,  un- 
happily, is  only  too  familiar  in  ordinary  experience.  We  have 
already  said  something  on  this  sad  subject.  There  are  very 
few  families  who,  in  the  ramifications  of  relationship  and  con- 
nections, can  not  count  up  a  few  black  sheep.  The  Oxford 
credit  system  has  much  to  answer  for,  but  it  has  still  some 
good  points.  It  sometimes  supplies  a  poor  scholar  with  ab- 
solute necessaries,  for  which  he  was  unable  to  pay  at  the  time, 
and  without  which  he  could  scarcely  have  passed  through  col- 
lege. It  is  also  to  be  said,  to  the  ultimate  credit  both  of 
graduate  honesty  and  the  sleuth-hound  vigilance  of  trades- 
men, that,  comparatively  speaking,  only  few  bad  debts  are 
made  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  There  is  a  whole  army  of 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS. 


77 


lawyers,  agents,  and  collectors,  a  column  whose  insidious  ad- 
vances are  screened  from  observation  till  the  moment  of  at- 
tack. We  question,  however,  if  mere  indebtedness  is  the  gen- 
eral cause  of  the  social  tragedy  of  a  downward  college  career. 
That  must  generally  be  an  enormous  profligacy  and  folly  at 
college  when,  subsequently,  a  crooked  career  can  by  no  means 
be  made  straight,  nor  recover  itself  through  honest  exertion 
and  the  help  of  friends.  That  must  be  an  almost  unmixed 
process  of  deterioration  which,  as  the  goal  of  a  career,  leaves 
a  university  man,  as  is  sometimes  the  case,  in  the  position  of 
a  billiard-marker  or  driver  of  a  hansom  cab. 

It  might  be  imagined  that  men  who  have  really  achieved  a 
career  at  the  university,  and  won  its  substantial  honors,  would 
be  in  the  best  possible  position  for  winning  further  distinc- 
tion. They  have  gained  the  vantage-ground  from  which  they 
may  best  advance,  and  are  furnished  with  the  instruments 
with  which  they  may  best  compete.  They  have  attained  so 
much  that  they  are  full  of  hope,  and  there  is  so  much  to  be 
attained  that  they  should  be  full  of  effort.  An  assured,  mod- 
erate provision,  with  a  really  good  chance  of  obtaining  still 
better  things,  has  been  defined  as  the  happiest  position  in  it- 
self, and  furnishing  the  best  incentive  for  exertion.  Theoret- 
ically, this  may  be  the  case,  but,  practically,  it  is  not  found  to 
work  so.  We  do  not,  in  any  degree,  desire  to  speak  disparag- 
ingly of  fellowships.  It  must,  also,  be  specially  remembered 
that  the  system  of  flinging  the  Oriel  fellowships  open  to  the 
world  proved  the  inauguration  of  better  days  for  Oxford,  and 
was  of  the  greatest  "  moment"  to  the  university.  Still,  the 
competition  is  so  keen,  the  strain  so  heavy  and  protracted, 
that  men  too  often  sacrifice  the  present  for  the  future,  and 
forget  that  a  university  career  is  not  the  only,  nor  yet  the 
best,  chance  in  life.  Any  university  career,  also,  however  ap- 
parently successful,  is  only  maimed  and  incomplete  that  does 


TURNING-POINTS  L\  LIFE. 


not  include  a  fair  share  of  the  social  advantages  of  the  uni- 
versity. It  is  the  glory  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  that  they 
not  only  make  scholars,  but  that  they  make  gentlemen  and 
make  men.  Every  man  should  seek  to  avail  himself  of  the 
intellectual  culture  of  the  university ;  and  there  are  now  so 
many  avenues  to  distinction  that  he  must,  indeed,  be  a  dull- 
ard who  despairs  of  making  any  appearance  in  any  class-list. 
But  it  is  something  also  to  "  catch  the  blossom  of  the  flying 
terms ;"  something  to  make  the  friends  and  build  up  the  char- 
acter which  are  to  stand  a  man  in  good  stead  in  his  after-life. 
We  do  not  stay  to  dwell  much  on  this  aspect  of  matters,  but 
he  who  has  done  thus  much,  and,  while  studying,  can  afford 
to  look  with  equanimity  on  material  success,  whether  it  comes 
or  goes,  has  really  hit  the  golden  mean,  and  pursued  the  kind 
of  career  which,  if  not  the  most  distinguished,  is,  at  least,  the 
happiest  and  most  salutary. 

There  is  no  subject  more  frequently  debated  than  the  com- 
parative merits  of  the  two  universities,  and  none  where  the 
chance  of  unanimity  is  so  doubtful  or  hopeless.  The  Oxford 
or  Cambridge  man  who  is  susceptible  of  being  argued  into 
the  conviction  that  the  sister  university  is  superior  to  his  own 
alma  mater  is  as  rare  as  the  knight  of  romance  who,  while 
championing  the  peerless  beauty  of  his  love,  might  avow  that 
he  was  prepared  to  give  an  enlightened  consideration  to  the 
possibly  superior  charms  of  some  other  competitor  for  the  title 
of  Queen  of  Beauty.  It  is  right  to  argue  and  contend,  but 
there  is  disloyalty  or  treason  in  the  very  thought  that  the  ar- 
gument can  have  more  than  one  conclusion.  It  generally 
ends  with  the  dogmatic  statement  that  the  arguer  is  positive 
that  he  is  in  the  right,  and  an  offer  to  back  either  the  light 
blue  or  the  dark  blue,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  any  conceivable 
extent,  for  the  next  boat-race.  There  are  a  few  persons,  not 
many — the  late  Mr.  Maurice  furnished  us  with  a  remarkable 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS. 


79 


example — who  have  studied  at  both  universities,  and  may  be 
supposed  to  possess  better  materials  for  forming  a  judgment, 
and  a  certain  degree  of  impartiality.  But  even  with  these  the 
tide  of  personal  associations,  from  the  influence  of  which  the 
most  philosophical  are  rarely  able  to  extricate  themselves, 
sets  decidedly  in  a  particular  direction.  And,  indeed,  as  soon 
as  we  have  gone  at  all  thoroughly  into  the  discussion,  we  per- 
ceive that  other  reasons  besides  an  affectionate  spirit  of  par- 
tisanship render  a  decision  exceedingly  difficult.  For  our- 
selves, we  confess  to  our  inability  to  strike  a  clear  balance ; 
but  though  we  can  not  hope  to  settle  the  general  question, 
there  are  many  points  on  which  it  is  quite  easy  to  arbitrate, 
that  may  satisfy  a  man,  not,  indeed,  as  to  which  is  the  best 
university,  considered  on  the  absolute  merits,  but  which  is  the 
best  for  him.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  men  go  up  to  the  university  without  much  careful  con- 
sideration of  this  preliminary  question.  The  matter  ought  to 
be  settled  on  more  definite  grounds  than  that  your  father  or 
uncle  was  there  before  you,  or  that  your  favorite  school-fellow 
has  gone  to  such  a  college.  It  is  not  unusual  to  meet  with 
an  Oxford  man  whose  friends  tell  him  that  he  ought  to  have 
gone  to  Cambridge,  nor  yet  with  the  Cambridge  man  who  will 
admit  that,  from  all  he  has  since  learned,  he  believes  that  Ox- 
ford would  have  been  the  preferable  university  for  him.  In 
selecting  a  university,  as  in  the  more  important  matter  of 
choosing  a  profession,  there  should  be  a  due  measure  of  in- 
quiry and  deliberation. 

In  very  many  cases,  indeed,  the  incipient  undergraduate  fol- 
lows a  probably  safe  tradition.  There  is  a  legal  and  histor- 
ical connection  between  some  great  schools  and  some  great 
colleges,  and  there  is  also  an  undefined,  but,  at  the  same  time, 
very  strong  connection  between  Eton  and  Christ  Church, 
which  has  become  illustrious  through  the  many  great  states- 


8o  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

men  educated  on  the  two  foundations.  But  if  a  man  does  not 
feel — to  employ  the  language  of  the  bidding  prayer — "  in  pri- 
vate duty  bound"  to  resort  to  a  particular  college,  he  is  then 
open  to  considerations  on  the  general  question.  These  con- 
siderations chiefly  have  respect  to  the  nature  of  his  training 
and  the  character  of  his  mind.  If,  for  instance,  he  is  mathe- 
matically inclined,  and  desires  that  his  mathematical  powers 
should  bring  him  reputation  and  profit,  it  is  clear  that  Cam- 
bridge is  the  place  for  him,  and  Oxford  is  not.  There  are 
mathematical  class-lists  at  Oxford  in  which,  no  doubt,  men 
of  remarkable  attainments  have  been  placed.  But  mathe- 
matical honors  at  Oxford  have  not  the  same  ascertained  and 
precise  value  as  at  Cambridge.  A  man  may  be  a  first-class 
in  mathematics  at  Oxford,  and  be  as  good  a  mathematician 
as  a  senior  wrangler,  and  yet  he  would  gain  hardly  any  thing 
of  the  credit  and  advantage  which  the  senior  wrangler  achieves. 
There  is  no  difficulty  in  speaking  on  the  subject  of  mathe- 
matical honors,  but  when  we  go  further  we  become  conscious 
of  considerable  difficulties.  This  has  been  such  a  revolution- 
ary era  at  the  universities  that  if  a  man  has  left  Oxford  only 
a  few  years  he  finds  it  difficult  to  speak  with  certainty  of  the 
comparative  value  of  its  academic  distinctions.  We  confess 
we  feel  great  sympathy  with  the  elders  who  maintain  as  un- 
challengeable the  value  of  the  old  Oxford  first,  before  it  was 
broken  up  into  the  first  and  second  public  examinations.  The 
result  has  been  the  deterioration  of  exact  scholarship  at  Ox- 
ford, but,  at  the  same  time,  the  lending  an  impulse  to  the  high- 
er and  more  difficult  subjects,  which  demand  a  close  acquaint- 
ance with  the  ancient  historians  and  philosophers,  and  the 
cognate  literature.  The  first  result  of  this  was  that  most  pub- 
lic schoolmen  chiefly  confined  their  attention  to  the  modera- 
tions examination.  It  is  now,  however,  unceasingly  felt  that 
the  second  public  examination  answers  most,  upon  the  whole, 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS.  8 1 

to  the  old  first-class,  and  has  a  greater  substantive  value  ;  and 
that  men  who  devote  themselves  exclusively  to  languages  are 
hardly  sufficiently  rewarded  by  the  intermediate  honors  of 
moderations.  It  is  also  to  be  noted,  that  at  Oxford  a  man 
may  attain  the  highest  classical  honors,  either  in  moderations 
or  in  the  final  examination,  without  writing  a  single  line  either 
of  Greek  or  Latin  verse.  We  suppose  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  a  Cambridge  man  to  obtain  even  a  low  second- 
class  without  a  considerable  mastery  of  this  accomplishment. 
The  old  saying  used  to  be,  that  Cambridge  excelled  in  mathe- 
matics, and  Oxford  in  classics.  It  may  still  be  claimed  that 
Oxford  classmen  have  the  thorough  and  accurate  knowledge 
of  the  books  which  they  bring  up,  which,  though  it  may  at 
times  be  reached  at  Cambridge,  has  probably  never  been  sur- 
passed. But  we  believe  that  there  can  be  scarcely  any  doubt 
but  the  palm  of  verbal  scholarship  in  England  now  rather  rests 
with  the  Cambridge  classical  tripos  than  with  any  Oxford 
class-list.  If  these  facts  are  so,  the  general  result  seems  to  be, 
that  if  a  man  is  born  with  an  instinct  for  writing  Greek  iam- 
bics or  Latin  elegiacs,  or  has  developed  remarkable  taste  in 
the  direction  of  the  "  Cratylus,"  he  will  find  the  best  field  for 
classics  in  the  examination  for  the  tripos.  But  then,  again,  it 
is  claimed  on  behalf  of  Oxford  that  she  advances  toward  a 
point  which  is  far  beyond  the  contemplation  of  the  Cambridge 
system.  Having  satisfied  herself  that  the  candidates  possess 
a  thorough  and  critical  knowledge  of  the  languages,  she  pro- 
ceeds to  give  chief  attention  to  the  subject-matter  of  the  books, 
and  to  mental  science.  It  may  almost  be  said  that  Oxford 
has  here  taken  the  place  of  Cambridge.  The  original  Cam- 
bridge wrangling,  which  has  given  its  name  to  the  mathemat- 
ical examination,  has  altogether  disappeared  from  Cambridge, 
but  is  reproduced  very  exactly  at  Oxford.  Men  may  no  lon- 
ger discuss  and  reason  and  dispute  at  Cambridge,  unless,  in- 

D2 


82  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


deed,  for  a  degree  of  divinity  ;  but  there  is  a  very  remarkable 
tincture  of  all  this  in  the  Oxford  final  examination.  The  an- 
cient historians  bring  up  the  whole  subject  of  history ;  the  an- 
cient philosophers,  the  subjects  of  ethical  and  metaphysical 
science.  Nor  is  this  knowledge  of  a  wordy  and  barren  kind. 
It  is  true  that  the  Oxford  student  has  studied  for  himself  the 
"  Organon"  of  Aristotle,  but  he  has  also  the  "  Novum  Orga- 
non"  at  his  fingers'  end,  and  is  as  well  read  in  Comte  and  Mill 
as  the  most  zealous  reader  of  the  Westminster.  Thus,  while 
insisting  upon  a  high  order  of  scholarship  for  her  superior 
classes,  the  Oxford  system  especially  encourages  thought,  re- 
search, originality,  fosters  the  historical  and  philosophical  spir- 
it, and  exercises  the  highest  mental  powers,  rather  than  makes 
any  extraordinary  demand  upon  the  memory  and  upon  mere 
acuteness.  In  this  way  the  old  Cambridge  wrangling  element 
is  a  constant  force  at  Oxford,  not  absent  from  the  schools,  and 
always  pervading  society.  Oxford  is  the  scene  of  incessant 
discussion,  the  place  of  ventilation  for  all  new  ideas.  The 
old  proverb,  much  quoted  lately,  is  true  enough,  that  any  sub- 
ject ardently  debated  at  Oxford  will  be  discussed  all  over  the 
kingdom  in  the  course  of  a  few  months.  It  is  noticeable,  as 
symptomatic  of  this,  that  the  volume  of  "  Reform  Essays"  is 
mainly  by  Oxford  men,  with  only  a  slight  admixture  of  Cam- 
bridge men  ;  and,  very  possibly,  a  larger  and  better  volume  by 
other  men  holding  other  views  might  be  easily  put  forth. 
Cambridge  has,  doubtless,  many  cultivated  men  who  take  a 
vivid  interest  in  intellectual  discussion  ;  but  this  is  quite  apart 
from  the  university  system,  while  at  Oxford  it  is  in  perfect 
accordance  with  it.  The  establishment  of  the  School  of  Law 
and  Modern  History,  an  institution  peculiar  to  Oxford,  has 
also  done  good  service  in  fostering  a  spirit  of  historical  in- 
quiry, and  bringing  Oxford  into  accordance  with  the  exigen- 
cies of  modern  education.  It  is  noticeable  that  Christ  Church, 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS.  83 

beyond  any  other  college,  has  been  honorably  distinguished 
in  the  historical  class-lists.  Perhaps  we  should  not  be  wrong 
in  saying  that  Cambridge  will  best  supply  us  with  schoolmas- 
ters, and  Oxford  with  statesmen.  For  systematical  labor,  crit- 
ical accuracy,  sheer  work,  and  more  remunerative  honors,  we 
believe  that  an  obvious  supremacy  rests  with  Cambridge.  But 
for  a  wider  and  deeper  training,  for  the  real  education  and  de- 
velopment of  the  higher  faculties,  for  the  more  genuine  tinct- 
ure of  all  that  is  implied  by  the  expression  Litercz  Humanio- 
res,  there  is  reason  for  believing  that  the  palm  belongs  to  the 
elder  university. 

In  the  friendly  comparison  between  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
a  number  of  smaller  matters  arise,  most  of  which  would  be 
chiefly  worth  noticing  for  the  sake  of  the  comparison,  although 
their  aggregate  value  would  be  not  inconsiderable.  Thus  the 
Oxford  freshmen  must  at  once  occupy  rooms  in  college,  and 
only  at  a  late  period  they  go  into  lodgings.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Cambridge  freshman  goes  into  lodgings,  and  subse- 
quently obtains  college  rooms.  The  Cambridge  man  puts 
the  plain  name,  but  the  Oxford  man  is  in  this,  and  other  re- 
spects, a  little  more  stately.  The  Cambridge  don  is  general- 
ly exceedingly  donnish ;  the  Oxford  don  is  exceedingly  frank 
and  familiar  to  the  younger  men  with  whom  he  is  brought  in 
contact.  At  Cambridge  there  is  an  odious  expression  con- 
stantly on  the  lips  of  reading  men,  which  least  becomes  young 
men  and  votaries  of  knowledge,  whether  each  course  of  read- 
ing will  pay.  The  expression  is  well  known  at  Oxford,  but 
by  no  means  prevails  to  the  same  extent.  We  like  the  Ox- 
ford plan  of  grouping  the  names  of  men  in  the  same  class  al- 
phabetically better  than  the  graduated  Cambridge  system,  as 
more  generous  in  itself  and  lessening  the  unavoidable  draw- 
backs that  attend  emulation  and  competition.  Mr.  Kingsley 
has,,  with  some  rancor,  insisted  that  Cambridge  men  have  a 


84  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

chivalry  of  their  own  toward  women,  in  which  Oxford  men 
are  painfully  deficient.  It  would  be  interesting  to  ascertain 
on  what  actual  facts  Mr.  Kingsley  bases  his  conclusion  ;  we 
have  not  ourselves  found  that  circumstances  point  in  this  di- 
rection. One  fact  sliould  be  noted  which  is  very  much  in  fa- 
vor of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  At  Cambridge  every 
other  man  you  meet  is  a  reading  man,  at  Oxford  barely  one 
man  in  four  deserves  that  title.  This  state  of  things  is  great- 
ly to  be  regretted,  because  the  university  curriculum  at  Ox- 
ford, apart  from  honors,  does  not  give  much  work  for  any 
man  of  average  intelligence,  and  there  are  so  many  avenues 
of  distinction  that  most  men  should  do  something  in  the 
schools.  Coming  to  the  practical  matter  of  expenditure,  the 
expense  of  tutors  is  about  a  third  more  at  Oxford  than  at 
Cambridge,  and  on  a  rough  calculation  the  Oxford  expenses 
are  perhaps  a  third  more  than  the  Cambridge  expenses. 
There  are  separate  items  in  which  Oxford  is  the  less  expen- 
sive of  the  two ;  thus  the  rooms  are  perhaps  better,  with  the 
rent  lower ;  but  matters,  on  the  whole,  are  somewhat  on  a 
more  expensive  scale.  A  man  very  often  goes  to  Cambridge 
to  make  money,  when  he  goes  to  Oxford  to  spend  money. 
The  debate  will  certainly  be  extended  into  a  comparison  of 
the  scenic  beauty  which  belongs  to  the  respective  localities. 
There  is  something  absolutely  unapproachable  in  the  extreme 
beauty  of  the  "  backs"  of  colleges  when  the  Cam  steals  be- 
tween frequent  arches  and  groves  and  lawns,  beneath  the 
shadows  of  venerable  edifices.  Neither  is  there  any  Oxford 
chapel  which  is  the  equal  of  King's  College  Chapel.  Never- 
theless, the  view  of  Oxford,  with  its  multiplicity  of  stately 
buildings,  amid  waters  and  gardens,  fully  realizes  Words- 
worth's epithet  of  "  overpowering."  The  city  is  altogether  on 
a  wider  and  grander  scale,  and  the  girdle  of  surrounding  coun- 
try possesses  a  greater  degree  of  interest.  If  from  this  we 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS.  85 

proceed  to  examine  the  muster-rolls  of  illustrious  names,  the 
two  universities  will  poll  man  for  man  with  much  rapidity ; 
but  the  great  names  of  Bacon  and  Newton,  Milton  and  Jer- 
emy Taylor,  invest  Cambridge  with  peculiarly  majestic  asso- 
ciations. 

It  is  impossible  that  any  comparison  can  give  us  an  un- 
doubted result,  because  the  terms  have  no  common  denomi- 
nator. A  man  may  easily  decide  which  university  is  the  best 
for  him,  but  he  will  find  it  impossible  to  decide  which  uni- 
versity is  best  in  itself.  If  England  only  possessed  one,  her 
educational  system  would  show  great  drawbacks ;  but,  in  the 
diversities  of  the  two,  each  supplements  the  other,  and  affords 
the  nutriment  that  is  best  suited  for  particular  orders  of  mind 
and  variety  of  circumstance.  One  of  the  most  thoughtful  and 
accurate  of  modern  observers,  M.  Taine,  in  his  "  Histoire  de  la 
Littdrature  Anglaise,"  has  words  respecting  Oxford  which  ap- 
ply equally  to  Cambridge — the  truth  of  which  we  trust  we 
shall  never  forfeit  —  that  it  affords  "traces  of  the  practical 
good  sense  which  has  accomplished  revolutions  without  com- 
mitting ravages  ;  which,  while  improving  every  thing,  has  de- 
stroyed nothing;  which  has  preserved  its  trees  as  its  consti- 
tution, pruning  out  the  old  branches  without  felling  the  trunk, 
and  now,  alone  among  the  nations,  enjoys  not  only  the  pres- 
ent but  the  past." 

But  now  there  threaten  to  come  upon  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge a  mighty  battalion  of  men  who  have  hitherto  been  seen 
only  in  casual  detachments.  This  is  the  army  of  poor  schol- 
ars. We  rejoice  to  believe  that  their  advent  has  now  really 
been  heralded.  When  a  system  of  national  education  has 
been  thoroughly  organized,  we  may  hope  that  the  district 
schools  will  draught  off  their  best  scholars,  and  the  endowed 
schools  will,  as  a  matter  of  course,  send  their  best  scholars  to 
the  universities.  We  hope  there  will  be  a  golden  academical 


86  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

age,  in  which  insufficiency  of  means  will  never  prevent  a 
bright,  good  youth  from  going  to  college.  The  tendency  of 
poor  men  at  present  is  to  go  to  Cambridge.  At  Cambridge 
the  colleges  are  very  rich,  while  the  university  itself  is  poor ; 
while  the  University  of  Oxford  is  very  rich,  while  the  colleges 
are  not  so  rich  as  those  of  Cambridge.  If  Mr.  Rogers's  cal- 
culations are  correct,  the  University  of  Oxford  will  before  long 
be  enormously  wealthy,  and  vast  funds  may  be  utilized  for  the 
purposes  of  education.  At  Cambridge  a  considerable  number 
of  men  receive  through  college  emoluments  a  large  measure 
of  help  in  their  course,  and,  indeed,  often  obtain  what  may  be 
called  an  academical  subsistence.  An  immense  sum  is  yearly 
given  away,  bestowed  with  the  most  scrupulous  fairness.  In- 
deed, any  man  by  very  shining  ability  and  attainments  may 
make  good  his  footing  at  either  university  through  the  open 
scholarships.  But  beyond  these  there  are  many  men  of  great 
powers  of  mind  who  nevertheless  could  not  hope  to  be  suc- 
cessful in  a  college  competition,  through  not  having  enjoyed 
the  thorough  training  which  public  schools  or  skillful  labor 
have  given  to  their  antagonists.  Many  of  the  best  men  at 
Oxford  have  obtained  very  poor  degrees.  And  beyond  these 
there  is  the  great  want  felt  in  the  Church  of  young  men  to 
take  holy  orders,  for  whom  scholarship  and  ability  are  not  so 
requisite  as  devotedness  of  character  and  special  adaptability 
for  their  work.  It  is  here  that  such  an  institution  as  Keble 
College  especially  finds  its  place,  in  meeting  an  acknowledged 
need,  and  filling  a  vacant  niche  in  the  university  system.  The 
system  of  unattached  students  also  meets  this  need,  and  in  a 
somewhat  wider  way.  For  it  meets  the  wants  not  only  of 
young  men  who  purpose  to  take  orders,  but  of  all  those  who 
in  any  way  desire  to  train  and  equip  themselves  for  intellect- 
ual life.  It  may  be  said  that  such  students  lose  the  advant- 
ages of  associating  with  other  young  men  of  the  university. 


UNIVERSITY  CAREERS.  87 

The  loss  is  certainly  not  entirely  on  their  side.  It  would  be 
well  for  the  indolent  and  luxurious  section  of  our  universities 
to  be  brought  into  close  contact  with  a  plainer  living,  a  great- 
er industry,  and  a  more  robust  understanding  than  their  own. 
The  loss  of  Oxford  society  might  be  a  sensible  loss,  but  it 
might  be  more  than  compensated  by  habits  of  frugality,  self- 
denial,  and  foresight,  and  the  acquisition  of  sterling  qualities 
which  might  adorn  a  larger  society  hereafter. 

We  therefore  look  forward  to  an  immense  development  of 
our  university  system.  In  the  administration  of  vast  funds  it 
will  be  hoped  that  the  founders'  intentions  of  encouraging 
probity,  industry,  and  religion  will  receive  distinct  attention, 
instead  of  competition  being  strictly  limited  to  a  place  in  the 
examination.  We  may  trust  that  the  universities  will  duly 
exhibit  and  duly  foster  the  best  young  intellectual  life  of  the 
country.  The  immense  appliances  of  professoriates,  libraries, 
and  museums  might  be  utilized  for  special  ends.  There  can 
be  no  reason  why  there  should  not  be  great  medical  schools 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  as  much  as  at  the  sister  universities 
of  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow.  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to 
hope  that  men  taking  orders  should  proceed  on  the  Pauline 
principle  of  learning  a  trade,  and  should  at  the  medical  school 
qualify  themselves  to  act  as  physicians  for  the  body  as  well 
as  physicians  for  the  soul.  We  are  sure  that  no  man  has 
ever  yet  gone  to  the  university,  or,  at  least,  has  truly  used  it, 
without  feeling  that  to  go  there  was  indeed  a  moment,  an  era, 
a  turning-point  in  his  life,  and  desiring  the  extension  of  such 
blessings  to  the  largest  possible  number  of  his  countrymen, 
unless  he  indeed  belong  to  those  against  whom  the  reproach 
was  divinely  given,  that  they  had  the  key  of  knowledge,  that 
they  entered  not  in  themselves,  and  that  those  who  were  en- 
tering in  they  hindered. 

That  is  a  real  moment  in  life  when  first  at  Cambridge  a 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


man  has  gazed  on  the  stately  line  of  colleges  nearer  him,  or 
has  paced  the  Broad  Walk  of  Oxford  to  the  marge  of  the  "  lil- 
ied  Cherwell,"  and  the  matchless  tower  of  Magdalen.  He 
who  has  worshiped  in  the  gorgeous  fanes,  or  studied  in  the 
antique  libraries  of  either  university,  or  has  first  listened  or 
studied  under  the  great  leaders  of  modern  thought  and  schol- 
arship in  their  lecture-rooms,  or  has  joined  in  the  actual  intel- 
lectual stir  and  strife  of  the  place,  or  has  formed  here  a  first 
high  tone  of  tastes  and  companionship,  or  has  realized  the 
ennobling  memories  and  associations  which  surround  him, 
will  not  fail  to  look  back  on  his  sojourn  as  days  among  the 
most  momentous  of  all  days,  and,  thinking  of  the  university, 
will  breathe  a  prayer  as  for  the  Zion  of  one's  youth,  that  peace 
may  be  within  her  walls,  and  prosperity  within  her  palaces. 


ON   THE   CHOICE   OF  A   PROFESSION.  89 


CHAPTER  V. 

On  the  Choice  of  a  Profession. 

THE  question  of  the  choice  of  a  profession  is  intensely  im- 
portant, and  the  choice  is  a  veritable  turning-point.  It  ought 
carefully  to  be  kept  in  view  for  years  in  advance.  Life  is 
very  like  a  battle  or  a  game  of  chess,  and  there  ought  to  be 
some  plan  of  the  campaign.  These  are  especially  days  in 
which  a  man  must  make  up  his  mind  to  be  something.  Men 
will  go  to  the  army  or  to  the  bar  if  only  that  they  may  be  able 
to  give  the  world  some  account  of  themselves.  Those  few 
men  who  do  not  enter  a  profession  belong  to  a  class  which 
has  the  leisure  and  independence  conferred  by  the  possession 
of  means  and  position,  a  class  which  has  great  duties  im- 
posed on  it,  and  is  so  a  profession  in  itself.  A  wise  parent 
will  watch  his  child  carefully  to  see  what  his  bias  or  tendency 
may  be.  Dr.  Johnson  has  defined  genius  as  strong  natural 
talent  accidentally  directed  in  a  particular  direction.  To  say 
the  least,  this  definition  is  not  exhaustive.  Great  natural  abil- 
ity will  doubtless  enable  a  man  to  excel  in  almost  any  direc- 
tion, but  genius  more  ordinarily  supposes  a  combination  of 
abilities  in  a  special  direction.  I  believe  a  great  deal  is  done 
in  a  child's  education  if  you  can  discover  a  bias,  and  give 
shape  and  direction  to  it.  Of  course  the  preferences  of  youth 
are  often  imaginary,  and  are  often  subjected  to  revision.  Still 
it  is  a  great  thing  to  get  a  lad  to  feel  a  distinct  preference  for 
any  pursuit,  to  map  out,  even  in  outline,  any  thing  like  a  chart 
of  the  future.  It  is  pre-eminently  the  misfortune  of  the  pres- 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


ent  day  that  so  many  young  men  are  devoid  of  enthusiasm 
and  have  no  object  in  life. 

Let,  however,  a  few  words  be  said  here  which  may  assuage 
some  anxious  thoughts.  I  do  not  think  that  it  really  matters 
whether  a  young  fellow  has  shining  abilities  or  not.  Of  course 
there  are  some  branches  of  life  for  which  a  man  should  have 
strong  abilities  and  a  strong  bias,  if  he  would  indulge  with 
fairness  any  high  expectations  of  success.  Such  is  author- 
ship as  a  profession,  or  the  artist's  calling.  The  most  money- 
getting  departments  of  human  life  are  those  in  which  shining 
ability  is  not  so  much  required  as  probity  and  common-sense. 
In  most  departments  of  life  we  have  nothing  more  to  expect 
than  the  manful  performance  of  duty  and  its  competent  dis- 
charge. If  a  boy  is  not  clever,  this  is  a  hint  from  nature  to 
the  parents  not  to  assign  him  a  path  of  life  where  superlative 
excellence  is  required  with  a  view  to  success,  but  to  find  him 
an  avocation  amid  the 

"Girdles  of  the  middle  mountain,  happy  realms  of  fruit  and  flower  ; 
Distant  from  ignoble  weakness,  distant  from  the  height  of  power." 
At  the  same  time  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  for  parents  to  de- 
cide rightly  on  the  question  of  the  capacity  of  their  children. 
Much  misery  is  caused  when  a  father  thinks  his  son  a  fool 
and  does  not  hesitate  to  tell  him  so.  Again,  if  a  son  is  found 
not  to  be  doing  well  in  any  particular  walk  of  life,  that  is  sim- 
ply a  sign  that  there  is  some  other  walk  in  life  in  which  he 
will  probably  do  exceedingly  well.  There  is  the  story  of  a 
father  who  found  that  his  son  was  a  great  failure  as  a  mid- 
shipman. He  immediately  concluded  that  he  would  do  very 
well  as  a  lawyer,  and  as  a  lawyer  he  rose  to  the  top  of  his  pro- 
fession. 

Let  us  now  rapidly  review  a  man's  chances  in  a  profession. 
Take  first  of  all  the  Church,  a  profession  which  lies  outside 
other  professions,  which  is  sometimes  entered  from  the  highest 


ON  THE   CHOICE  OF  A   PROFESSION.  gi 

\ 

motives  alone,  sometimes  from  very  low  motives,  and  some- 
times from  mixed  motives.  A  few  words  may  here  be  added 
to  what  we  have  already  said  on  the  subject.  There  are  those 
(the  Sunt  qui  phrase  which  we  so  often  have  to  use)  who  en- 
ter the  Church  because  there  is  some  valuable  old  ancestral 
living  in  store.  The  modern  form  of  this  abuse  is  that  a  wor- 
thy parent  invests  his  savings  for  a  son  in  a  chancellor's  liv- 
ing, which  on  the  whole  yields  a  very  fair  return  as  an  invest- 
ment, to  which  the  young  man  succeeds  in  due  course,  after 
the  process  of  waiting  for  a  dead  man's  slippers.  Then  there 
are  many  young  men  who  are  easily  persuaded  or  persuade 
themselves  to  enter  Church  as  a  fitting  conclusion  to  a  colle- 
giate career.  To  a  man  who  has  taken  his  degree  the  Church 
is  a  profession  easier  of  access  than  any  other,  and,  unlike 
any  other,  yields  immediately  a  modest  income  and  a  good 
social  status. 

The  existence  of  a  sordid  element  is  a  reproach  and  weak- 
ness of  the  Church.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  something  in 
time  may  be  done  to  remedy  such  a  state  of  affairs  :  the  rem- 
edy must  chiefly  be  sought  in  the  increased  sense  of  respons- 
ibility among  patrons  and  young  men,  and  perhaps  in  some 
enactment  that  only  curates  of  seven  years'  standing  should 
be  appointed  to  livings  of  a  certain  amount  of  value  and  pop- 
ulation. Only  a  feeling  of  simple  regard  and  reverence  can 
exist  for  those  who,  urged  by  the  loftiest  motives  irrespective 
of  earthly  considerations,  devote  themselves  to  their  heavenly 
Master's  work.  And,  taking  human  nature  as  it  is,  we  will 
not  think  harshly  of  any  who  adopt  this  line  of  life,  if  only 
amid  their  mixed  motives  we  recognize  a  humble  and  hearty 
desire  to  do  good  in  the  cause  and  service  of  Christ.  Still 
it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  worldly  aspect  of  the 
Church  should  be  put  clearly  and  honestly  before  those  who 
from  their  inexperience  are  no  judges  of  the  position  of  life 


92  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


and  the  worldly  chances  of  the  minister  of  religion.  Of  those 
chances,  unless  in  the  case  of  a  family  living,  or  of  command- 
ing influence,  very  little  can  be  said.  If  a  man  has  a  fervent 
desire  for  the  ministry,  let  any  father  be  very  careful  before 
he  dares  to  interpose  obstacles.  But  it  is  the  father's  duty 
clearly  to  put  before  his  son  that  secular  view  of  the  matter 
which  the  son  from  his  inexperience  might  be  incompetent  to 
understand. 

He  will  tell  him,  therefore,  that  his  average  pay  as  a  curate 
will  be  a  hundred  a  year,  or  one  pound  eighteen  and  fivepence 
a  week.  He  will  also  explain  to  him  that  his  length  of  serv- 
ice in  the  Church  will  for  many  years  be  of  no  use,  and  will 
afterward  operate  as  a  disqualification.  He  will  tell  him  that 
any  preferment  might  just  as  well  come  in  his  first  year  as  his 
fifteenth,  or  that  it  may  not  come  at  all.  He  will  explain  that 
the  more  earnestly  and  singly  a  man  applies  to  his  work,  the 
less  likely  is  he  to  make  friends,  to  move  about  in  the  world, 
to  form  a  literary  or  scholastic  connection.  It  is  quite  true 
that  eloquent  and  clever  men  may  possibly  make  their  way  to 
the  front,  and  obtain  recognition  and  reward.  But  it  is  a  lot- 
tery even  with  them,  and  the  average  hard-working  curate  has 
barely  a  chance.  His  bishop  will  probably  be  willing  to  do 
something  for  him,  but  the  patronage  of  a  bishop  is  very  lim- 
ited compared  to  the  number  of  claimants.  The  endowments, 
provided  at  a  time  when  the  country  was  poor  and  the  popu- 
lation thin,  are  utterly  inadequate  to  a  time  when  the  country 
is  populous  and  enormously  wealthy.  It  might  therefore  be 
thought  that  the  obligations  devolved  by  the  Bible  upon  each 
generation  of  Christians  toward  each  generation  of  ministers 
would  be  recognized,  and  that  voluntary  efforts  would  make 
up  for  the  inadequate  endowments  of  poor  incumbents  and 
the  non-existent  endowments  of  poorer  curates.  It  would 
have  to  be  explained,  however,  that  though  this  may  be  the 


ON  THE   CHOICE    OF  A   PROFESSION. 


93 


case  in  some  instances,  there  is  not  enough  liberality  and 
Christian  obedience  in  the  laity  of  the  English  Church  to  cre- 
ate any  regular  system  of  the  kind,  and  that  the  scheme  of  a 
sustentation  fund  is  unknown  to  the  English  Church.  More- 
over, the  curate,  as  bred  in  gentle  ways  and  unversed  in  the 
affairs  of  the  world,  will  especially  have  to  guard  against  the 
temptation  to  marriage  and  the  meshes  of  debt. 

One  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  would  be  that  the  pub- 
lit  patronage  of  the  country  now  vested  in  the  premier  and 
the  lord  chancellor  should  not  be  left  to  their  individual  ca- 
prices, but  be  administered  according  to  intelligible  princi- 
ples. Another  and  larger  remedy  would  be  that  the  area  of 
work  in  which  the  clergy  may  occupy  themselves  should  be 
indefinitely  enlarged.  There  appears  to  be  no  valid  objec- 
tion why  the  clergy  should  not  practice  as  doctors  or  sur- 
geons. It  is  to  be  hoped  that  some  corporate  action  will  be 
taken  in  the  matter,  that  some  clerical  school  of  medicine  will 
be  established.  I  also  see  no  reason  why  those  curates  of 
the  Establishment  who  may  not  be  fit  for  intellectual  work,  01 
may  not  be  able  to  find  a  market  for  it,  should  not  enter  into 
some  kind  of  business.  The  apostle  St.  Paul  was  a  tent- 
maker.  I  believe  there  is  still  a  great  deal  of  business  done 
in  tent-making,  and  should  we  be  involved  in  war  by-and-by, 
to  purge  us  from  our  sins,  there  will  doubtless  be  a  great 
deal  more.  There  should  be  some  clerical  tent-making  com- 
pany formed.  It  is  better  for  clergymen  to  be  employed  in 
any  sort  of  way  than  to  cause  scandal  by  running  in  debt. 

I  do  not  see  that  the  Dissenting  clergy,  with  all  their  boasts 
of  the  voluntary  system,  are  really  any  better.  At  least  we 
hear  very  great  complaints,  not  ill-founded,  of  narrow  income, 
and  it  has  been  the  business  of  a  whole  class  of  able  writers 
to  acquaint  us  with  the  short-comings  of  the  Dissenting  minis- 
terial position.  The  contrast  seems  to  fail  in  the  very  point 


94 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


where  it  might  seem  most  telling.  It  is  true  that  an  able  man 
in  full  work,  who  might  be  receiving  four  or  five  hundred  a 
year  among  the  Dissenters,  might  only  be  getting  a  quarter 
of  that  in  the  Establishment.  But  the  Dissenting  Boanerges 
when  he  becomes  old  has  probably  only  a  very  limited  retire- 
ment allowance,  while  the  Anglican,  who  has  worked  hard  on 
a  scanty  remuneration  most  of  his  days,  may  in  the  evening 
of  life  find  these  conditions  reversed — a  good  living  and  a 
very  moderate  population. 

Let  us  now  look  at  other  businesses  and  professions.  In 
nearly  all  of  them  the  words  of  the  poet  are  true — "  All  the 
gates  are  thronged  with  suitors,  all  the  markets  overflow." 
Take  the  bar.  A  man  of  real  ability  may  have  very  long  to 
wait,  and  the  waiting  process  is  a  very  costly  one.  It  can 
hardly  be  done  without  a  modest  independent  income  by  any 
one  who  would  obey  the  great  legal  injunction, "  to  bear  the 
port  and  carriage  of  a  gentleman."  Persevere,  read  hard,  at- 
tend the  courts,  stick  close  when  not  in  attendance  on  them  to 
your  chambers  ;  don't  even  shrink  from  familiarizing  yourself 
with  the  business  of  an  attorney's  office — so  an  "  old  stager" 
would  say  to  a  beginner — and  you  will  at  least  deserve  success, 
and  in  all  probability  you  will  attain  it.  Still  I  am  afraid  that 
to  deserve  success  and  to  attain  it  are  hardly  synonymous 
terms.  In  all  professions  there  is  a  vast  mass  of  educated 
mediocrity  that  can  do  its  work  very  respectably,  but  in  every 
department  positive  excellence  and  pre-eminence  is  required, 
and  this  is  exceedingly  rare.  Law  is  a  luxury  of  civilization, 
and  people  who  have  a  taste  for  luxuries  like  the  most  fashion- 
able and  the  best. 

We  confess  to  a  tender  feeling — one  of  peculiar  sympathy 
and  appreciation — for  briefless  barristers.  So  far  as  we  can 
see,  they  are  quite  as  clever,  and  a  great  deal  more  amiable 
and  amusing,  than  barristers  with  endless  briefs.  The  general 


ON  THE   CHOICE   OF  A   PROFESSION. 


95 


notion  is  that  our  briefless  friend  is  a  man  of  genius  and  cult- 
ure, waiting  for  the  chance  which  laggard  fortune  is  so  slow 
in  giving  him.  If  he  only  had  the  chance,  it  would  be  the 
Archimedes  lever  which  would  enable  him  to  move  the  legal 
world,  and  grasp  the  seals.  It  rather  militates  against  this 
idea  that  many  briefless  barristers  are  such  of  set  purpose, 
and  would  be  infinitely  dismayed  if  briefs,  and  the  chance  of 
legal  greatness,  were  thrust  upon  them.  They  have  gone  to 
the  bar  as  the  most  gentlemanly  of  professions,  and  as  giving 
them  a  kind  of  status  which  it  is  worth  while  acquiring.  In 
England  we  have  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  a  man's  having  a 
definite  profession ;  and,  unless  his  name  is  a  guarantee  for 
wealth  or  territory,  we  credit  the  idle  man  with  being  more  or 
less  of  a  vagabond.  The  status  of  a  barrister  is  an  "  undeni- 
able" one,  neither  is  it  particularly  expensive,  especially  if  the 
sham  is  acknowledged  from  the  first,  and  there  is  no  pretense 
of  reading  in  a  pleader's  room.  Again,  many  men  become 
barristers  who  do  not  care  to  practice,  but  desire  to  qualify 
themselves  for  dropping  into  something  good.  Briefless  bar- 
risters help  to  swell  the  class  of  waiters  upon  Providence — 
those  who  open  their  mouths,  shut  their  eyes,  and  see  what 
may  be  sent  them.  There  are  always  a  number  of  good  things 
going,  for  which  a  barrister  is  often  the  only  legally  qualified 
candidate — magistracies,  and  so  on — not  only  at  home,  but, 
to  an  extensive  degree,  in  the  colonies  as  well.  We  have 
known  men,  appointed  to  high  judicial  office  in  the  colonies, 
whose  legal  library  hardly  extended  beyond  the  "  Comic  Black- 
stone."  It  may  be  interesting  to  mention  that  they  proved 
admirable  judges,  their  decisions  being  always  characterized 
by  sound  equity  and  strong  common  -  sense.  Indeed,  our 
pleasant  and  gentlemanly  friends,  the  briefless  barristers,  are 
a  most  deserving  class,  and  we  hardly  know  that  good  things 
could  be  better  bestowed  elsewhere.  Many  briefless  barris- 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


ters  have  no  care  or  sympathy  for  the  work  of  the  bar,  and 
many  regard  their  membership  as  a  step-stone  to  something 
more  congenial.  They  would  not  mind  being  made  judges  at 
once,  but  they  dislike  the  drudgery  of  the  long  initiation  as 
working  counsel.  It  is  impossible  not  to  appreciate  their 
high-minded  regret  that,  in  this  country,  judicial  appointments 
are  not  bestowed  irrespectively  of  thesa  merely  professional 
considerations. 

Still,  briefless  barristers  mainly  consist  of  those  who  would 
like  briefs  well  enough  if  they  could  only  get  them.  There 
are  those  who  have  never  had  a  chance,  and  those  who  have 
had  their  chance  and  lost  it.  In  the  present  day  it  is  the  most 
difficult  thing  in  the  world  for  a  barrister  to  get  a  fair  chance. 
A  man  is  supposed  to  be  doing  all  that  he  can  if  he  assidu- 
ously attends  the  criminal  courts,  and  waits  his  turn,  which  is 
supposed  to  come  round  in  due  course,  of  getting  a  brief  for  a 
prosecution.  It  is,  indeed,  in  the  criminal  courts  that  most 
barristers  make  their  first  start,  if,  indeed,  they  succeed  in  be- 
ing placed.  But  it  is  very  hard  to  get  up  a  criminal  business  ; 
and,  after  all,  it  is  rather  a  dirty  kind  of  business.  You  have, 
besides,  to  know  people  whom  you  would  rather  cut,  and  be 
civil  where  you  would  rather  snub.  We  have  met  extremely 
intelligent  men  who  have  argued,  with  much  plausibility,  that 
criminal  business  is  the  most  important  business  at  the  bar  ; 
that  it  is  better,  per  se,  to  plead  for  life  and  liberty  than  mere- 
ly for  property.  But  it  is  practically  found  that  there  is  a 
frightful  sameness  in  criminal  business,  that  greed  and  passion 
have  always  the  same  kind  of  debasing  story  to  tell,  and  that 
you  can  hardly  get  beyond  the  range  of  a  certain  monotonous 
vulgarity  of  crime.  Moreover,  a  man's  mind  frequently  revolts 
against  the  work  to  which  it  is  put.  A  counsel,  for  instance, 
clearly  sees  that  his  garroting  client  deserves  to  be  hanged 
or  flogged;  and  it  can  be  very  little  satisfaction  to  his  mind 


ON   THE   CHOICE    OF  A    PROFESSION. 


97 


that  he  has  got  him  off  his  hanging  or  his  flogging.  The  brief- 
lessness  of  some  barristers  is,  probably,  due  to  their  scruples 
or  their  disgust.  A  man  of  refined  culture  and  a  fastidious 
tone  of  mind  finds  himself  utterly  unable  to  brow-beat  witness- 
es, or  drag  himself  down  to  the  level  of  a  British  jury.  Some- 
times the  brieflessness  is  due  to  a  less  creditable  cause.  He 
has  to  own  to  himself  that  he  is  really  not  up  to  his  work. 
He  may  be  able  keenly  to  detect  a  brother  counsel's  mistakes 
in  the  handling  of  a  witness,  or  in  the  points  which  he  puts  to 
a  jury  ;  but  when  he  is  himself  called  upon  to  address  a  court, 
he  finds  that  he  has  to  use  armor  which  he  has  not  proved. 
He  finds  that  he  has  not  got  the  art  of  public  speaking,  and 
the  oration,  which  seemed  so  neat  and  satisfactory  when  he 
composed  it  in  his  chamber,  is  lame  and  impotent  when  he 
has  to  bring  it  out.  He  then  bitterly  regrets  that  he  never 
joined  the  "Union"  at  his  university,  and  that  he  always 
looked  with  contempt  on  the  little  contemporary  clubs  for 
mutual  discussion.  For  the  want  of  a  mere  knack,  which 
might  have  been  acquired  with  ease  and  pleasure  in  younger 
days,  many  an  able  man  subsides  into  a  chamber  counsel  who 
might  have  made  for  himself  a  great  public  reputation.  It  is 
not  encouraging  to  a  young  barrister,  in  his  first  essay,  if  a 
learned  judge,  after  listening  for  a  few  minutes,  opens  the  even- 
ing paper,  and  composes  himself  to  the  latest  intelligence. 
Our  judges  are,  of  course,  beyond  the  slightest  whisper  of  par- 
tiality. Still,  it  is  a  great  thing  to  be  known  to  the  presiding 
judge  personally  or  by  reputation,  and  it  greatly  affects  the 
reputation  in  which  a  counsel  is  held  by  solicitors  whether  he 
is  heard  by  the  court  with  marked  deference  and  attention  or 
is  hardly  listened  to  at  all. 

A  few  years  ago  there  was  such  a  rapid  series  of  elevations 
in  the  law  courts  that  it  has  been  popularly  said  in  the  pro- 
fession that  business  to  the  extent  of  thirty  thousand  or  forty 

E 


98  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

thousand  a  year  has  been  set  free  in  the  courts,  to  be  disposed 
of  among  men  who,  save  for  those  elevations,  would  not  have 
had  it.  It  is  also  popularly  said  that  at  present  there  is  a 
great  dearth  of  commanding  talent  on  some  of  the  circuits, 
and  there  was  never  a  better  opening  for  a  first-rate  man  than 
at  the  present  time.  At  the  first  blush  all  this  sounds  very 
well  for  our  briefless  friend,  but,  on  examination,  it  is  mere 
mirage.  A  man  of  first-rate  powers  will  certainly  succeed, 
but  the  man  whose  abilities  are  merely  good  has  no  such 
pleasing  certainty.  And  the  man  of  first-rate  powers  has  to 
prove  that  he  possesses  such.  No  one  will  give  him  credit 
for  it,  and  no  one  will  help  him  to  prove  it.  He  has,  per- 
haps, many  years  to  wait  for  his  opening ;  then  the  business 
will  come  in  at  a  rush.  He  takes  the  tide,  and  goes  on  to 
fortune  ;  the  fat  ears  will  make  amends  for  the  lean  ears.  To 
such  a  man  the  opening  is  every  thing,  but  to  such  a  man  the 
opening  may  very  possibly  never  come.  There  are  tales  on 
record — Lord  Campbell  has  several  such  in  his  "Lives  of  the 
Chancellors" — which  give  us  a  romance  of  a  forum.  The 
leader  is  absent,  and  the  junior  counsel  gloriously  wins  the 
cause.  A  man  rises  to  address  the  jury  quite  unknown,  and 
leaves  the  court  immortalized.  A  good-natured  attorney  gen- 
erously marks  some  young  man  of  promise,  and  gives  him  an 
important  brief.  We  may  observe  that  the  last  kind  of  in- 
stance is  becoming  almost  an  impossibility.  A  solicitor,  in  a 
case  which  is  at  all  important,  knows  that  it  is  perilous  work 
to  intrust  a  brief  to  an  unknown  genius.  With  characteristic 
caution  he  has  to  rely  upon  talent  that  is  proved,  rather  than 
on  talent  which  has  to  assert  itself.  He  has  also  interests  of 
his  own  to  serve,  and  will  not  concern  himself  with  the  inter- 
ests of  one  who  is  an  outsider  to  his  circle.  In  cases  involv- 
ing property,  he  is  obliged  to  avail  himself  of  the  highest  tal- 
ent which  he  can  command,  for  his  clients  will  insist  on  this, 


ON  THE   CHOICE   OF  A   PROFESSION.  99 

and  it  will  be  to  their  advantage,  and  ultimately  to  his  own, 
that  this  should  be  the  case.  Otherwise,  a  solicitor  will  natu- 
rally give  his  business  to  his  own  friends  and  connections. 

This  brings  us  to  another  prevailing  cause  of  brieflessness. 
To  a  considerable  extent  legal  business  is  becoming  a  monop- 
oly in  the  hands  of  a  class.  Formerly  a  great  social  distinc- 
tion existed  between  barristers  and  solicitors,  but  absolutely 
no  such  distinction  now  exists.  It  was  thought  in  the  highest 
degree  indecorous  for  a  solicitor  to  make  advances  to  a  bar- 
rister ;  it  was  as  bad  as  a  modest  maiden  making  advances  to 
a  bachelor.  The  fledgeling  barristers  sat  in  modest  awe,  pal- 
pitating for  a  proposal.  To  vary  the  image,  the  legal  houris 
wondered  to  whom  the  sultan  of  a  solicitor  would  throw  the 
handkerchief.  Theoretically,  at  least,  and  to  a  great  extent 
practically,  this  high  etiquette  is  maintained.  In  the  mean- 
time, however,  the  friends  of  barristers  bring  heavy  pressure 
to  bear  upon  solicitors  in  the  matter  of  the  disposal  of  their 
briefs.  In  the  meantime,  also,  solicitors  have  reduced  their 
patronage  to  a  special  system  of  their  own.  A  legal  firm, 
with  a  lucrative  business,  sends  the  son  or  relative  of  some 
leading  member  to  the  bar,  and  is  able,  in  the  legitimate 
course  of  business,  even  though  his  abilities  are  mediocre,  to 
put  a  good  professional  income  in  his  way.  One  of  the  most 
approved  methods  for  a  barrister  to  get  into  practice  is  to 
marry  into  the  family  of  a  solicitor.  This  kind  of  arrange- 
ment is  now  fully  recognized.  The  lawyer  may  not  be  able 
to  give  his  son-in-law  a  sum  of  money,  but  he  can  promise 
him  business  to  the  extent  of  .£500  a  year ;  that  is,  he  pays 
him  in  kind — receives  him  on  what  are  called  terms  of  reci- 
procity. It  is  not  at  all  a  bad  way  for  getting  on  at  the  bar 
to  marry  a  solicitor's  daughter. 

But  let  us  see  how  all  this  works  for  our  briefless  friend. 
He  can  not  marry  the  daughter  of  the  only  influential  solic- 


100  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

itor  he  knows,  even  although  he  is  to  be  paid  for  it.  He  has 
no  legal  connection.  He  has  simply  entered  a  most  honor- 
able and  ancient  profession,  relying  on  his  character,  culture, 
and  ability.  At  first  he  is  greatly  impressed  with  the  owl-like 
wisdom  of  the  wig  and  gown.  There  is  a  pleasing  excitement 
and  variety  in  going  circuit,  in  joining  a  brilliant  mess,  in  gath- 
ering up  the  wit  and  stories  of  the  court.  He  probably  sees 
something  of  local  society,  and  hopes  that  he  will  some  day 
distinguish  himself  in  the  eyes  that  rain  down  sweet  influence. 
He  perhaps  owns  to  himself,  after  a  time,  that  there  is  a  de- 
pressing monotony  in  that  average  fifty-pound  note  which  go- 
ing circuit  costs  him.  Once  it  was  thought  a  great  thing  to 
attend  sessions  by  way  of  making  business,  but  sessions  are 
not  now  for  barristers  what  they  once  were.  Once  it  was  held 
that  a  barrister  might  get  business  by  affecting  to  be  busy — by 
having  a  blue  bag  filled  with  papers,  and  many  books  and 
documents  to  consult ;  but  this  is  now  esteemed  a  baseless  le- 
gend. Perhaps  he  becometh  cynical.  He  thinks  that  Buzfuz 
(Sergeant)  talked  "  utter  bosh"  in  opening  Mrs.  Bardell's  case  ; 
that  Jones,  Q.C.,  did  not  do  half  as  well  as  he  could  have 
done  in  cross-examining  that  tough  witness ;  and  even  that 
Starling  (CJ.)  got  rather  muddled  in  the  issue  which  he  left 
to  the  jury.  Perhaps  he  thinks  that  its  "dogged  that  does 
it,"  and  elects  a  Westminister  court  to  which  he  will  regularly 
attend.  He  beguiles  much  time  by  taking  portraits,  profile 
and  full  face,  of  such  men  as  Buzfuz  (Sergeant),  Jones,  Q.C., 
and  Starling  (C.J.).  Finally,  he  perhaps  betakes  himself  to 
literature,  or  to  some  other  downward  path  that  leads  to  pro- 
fessional perdition.  In  Mr.  Burgon's  interesting  life  of  Tytler, 
the  historian,  we  find  that,  being  the  son  of  a  well-known  judge, 
he  had  a  considerable  practice  at  the  Scotch  criminal  bar ; 
but  when  the  writers  found  that  he  was  becoming  known  as 
an  author,  his  practice  quite  forsook  him.  The  late  Mr.  Just- 


ON  THE   CHOICE   OF  A  PROFESSION.  ioi 

ice  Talfourd  was  a  successful  barrister  and  successful  author, 
and — save  the  mark — a  poet.  Such  a  phenomenon  is  ab- 
normal enough,  and  recalls  the  black  swan,  or  rather  the  aloe, 
that  blossoms  but  once  in  a  hundred  years. 

We  confess  that  we  think  our  old  friends  Mr.  Briefless  and 
Mr.  Dunup  have  been  rather  hardly  dealt  by.  Every  man 
ought  to  have  a  fair  chance,  and  we  can  not  see  that  they 
have  had  theirs.  But  we  will  forget  the  case  of  individuals 
in  the  larger  consideration  which  brieflessness  opens  up. 
Two  considerations  occur  to  us  which  may  be  very  concisely 
stated.  If  the  bar  degenerates  into  a  class-profession  which 
hardly  gives  independent  men  a  chance,  then  there  is  a  dan- 
ger that  independent  men  will  not  go  to  the  bar,  and  that  it 
will  seriously  fall  off  in  efficiency  and  its  general  standard. 
Secondly,  solicitors  should  consider  that  every  man  is  a  debt- 
or to  his  profession,  and  should  not  only  seek  their  own  ends, 
but  do  what  they  can  to  promote  the  efficiency  of  the  legal 
profession — an  end  which  they  will  promote  if  they  give  un- 
known men  a  chance.  To  the  briefless  themselves  there  are 
certainly  not  wanting  topics  of  consolation.  They  see  a  great 
deal  of  life  and  character.  They  have  abundant  space  of 
time  for  meditation.  They  have  the  fairest  opportunity  for 
exercising  that  finest  of  virtues,  patience.  They  have  gener- 
ally some  means  of  their  own — health,  hope,  fine  tastes,  en- 
ergy, and  culture.  In  the  season  of  fruition  they  will  perhaps 
desiderate  the  period  of  hope ;  in  the  season  of  oppressive 
business,  the  period  of  leisure.  Leisure  is,  after  all,  the  main 
boon  and  prize  of  life,  and  those  who  can  use  it  well,  though 
they  may  be  briefless,  will  not,  in  the  long  run  and  in  the  best 
sense,  be  unsuccessful. 

The  success  may  come  at  last,  but  before  the  success  may 
come  there  are  some  preliminary  questions  to  be  settled. 
The  question  of  the  morality  of  advocacy  is  one  which,  to  a 


102  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

young  man  at  that  decisive  turning-point  of  life  which  consists 
in  choosing  a  profession,  is  often  full  of  embarrassment.  I 
have  known  of  instances  in  which  men  who  might  have  had 
good  chances  at  the  bar  have  held  aloof  from  moral  consider- 
ations. It  was  bad  enough  that  on  the  legal  cab-stand  they 
should  be  at  the  beck  and  call  of  each  hirer.  It  was  bad 
enough  that  the  energies  of  an  immortal  soul  should  be  frit- 
tered away  on  such  questions  as  whether  a  railway  company 
should  be  liable  for  the  lost  goods  of  a  passenger  who  had 
not  duly  registered  them,  or  whether  Jem  Stubbs's  destroying 
his  wife's  head  by  knocking  it  too  much  about  with  a  poker 
was  murder  or  manslaughter.  It  may  be  observed  that,  in  the 
latter  case,  the  verdict  will  probably  be  manslaughter,  and  the 
judge,  in  all  probability,  will  pass  a  lenient  sentence.  Our 
judges  appear  to  have  a  truly  British  respect  for  property,  as 
compared  with  the  person — with  life  and  limb.  Mr.  Trollope 
is,  of  course,  the  great  advocate  against  advocacy.  It  cer- 
tainly seems  intolerable  that,  when  a  man  is  plainly  on  the 
facts  guilty  of  an  atrocious  murder,  and  the  barrister  leans  to 
the  belief  that,  on  the  whole,  he  would  rather  hang  such  a 
scoundrel  than  leave  him  unhanged,  that  the  same  barrister 
should  be  obliged  to  expend  all  his  ability  and  ingenuity  in 
getting  him  off.  Practically,  a  barrister  has  no  choice  ;  he 
must  take  any  case  that  is  offered  to  him  or  he  will  lose 
business,  although  I  believe  that  once  or  twice  barristers  have 
refused  briefs  in  favor  of  criminals  whom  they  abhorred.  It 
is  thus  that  St.  Augustine  writes  of  the  matter :  "  And  I  re- 
solved in  thy  sight,  not  tumultuously  to  tear,  but  gently  to 
withdraw,  the  service  of  my  tongue  from  the  marts  of  lip-la- 
bor ;  that  the  young,  no  students  in  thy  law,  nor  in  thy  peace, 
but  in  lying  dotages,  and  lip-skirmishes,  should  no  longer  buy 
at  my  mouth  arms  for  their  madness.  And  (very  seasonably) 
it  now  wanted  very  few  days  unto  the  vacation  of  the  Vintage, 


ON  THE   CHOICE   OF  A  PROFESSION.  103 

and  I  resolved  to  endure  them,  then  in  a  regular  way  to  take 
my  leave,  and,  having  been  purchased  by  thee,  no  more  re- 
turn for  sale."  There  was  a  higher  tone  in  the  Roman  fo- 
rum than  there  is  in  our  own.  Cicero  would  refuse  to  defend 
a  man  of  whose  innocence  he  was  not  convinced.  The  an- 
swer to  such  reasoning  is  that  the  barrister  is  one  component 
part  of  a  complex  machinery,  the  object  of  which  is  to  elicit 
the  truth.  He  does  not  feel  called  upon,  as  Cicero  felt,  to 
avow  his  belief  in  the  innocence  of  his  client  Indeed,  such 
a  course  would  be  deemed  to  be  in  the  worst  taste.  He  is 
testing  the  worth  of  other  statements ;  he  is  making  his  own 
statements ;  he  is  suggesting  the  theory  that  may  probably  be 
the  right  one.  He  is  an  active  agent  in  bringing  about  a 
right  decision,  and  in  promoting  the  cause  of  justice.  The 
general  reasoning  in  favor  of  modern  advocacy,  of  which  this 
is  a  specimen,  can  hardly  be  asserted  to  be  other  than  as  a 
whole  irrefragable.  Still  I  can  imagine,  despite  any  amount 
of  such  special  pleading,  that  a  high-minded  barrister  will  feel 
some  qualms  when  he  knows,  for  instance,  that  he  has  been 
the  means  of  crushing  and  oppressing  a  poor  widow.  Still, 
some  of  the  best  practice  of  the  bar  consists  in  chamber  prac- 
tice, in  equity,  and  in  the  common  law  cases,  in  which  astute- 
ness and  learning  may  be  carefully  exercised.  The  bar  is  the 
avenue  to  the  bench,  and  no  one  has  a  purer  fame  or  does 
his  country  better  service  than  the  wise  and  upright  judge. 

Probably,  of  the  entire  income  made  by  the  practice  of  the 
law,  only  about  ten  per  cent,  goes  to  the  barristers.  On  the 
other  hand,  all  the  distinctions  of  the  profession  belong  to 
them.  Of  the  solicitors,  there  is  of  course  a  class  of  whom 
every  one  thinks  with  deserved  contempt  and  dislike.  Prob- 
ably this  pettifogging  class  is  both  a  small  and  a  diminishing 
one.  It  has  been  my  happiness  to  know  lawyers  who  have 
been  an  ornament  to  their  order,  and  raise  one's  opinion  of 


104  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

human  nature.  I  have  known  lawyers  who  have  made  a  point 
of  never  allowing  a  case  to  go  into  court  if  it  can  possibly  be 
helped,  who  never  undertake  a  case  of  the  substantial  justice 
of  which  they  are  not  convinced,  and  who  really  make  no 
charge  at  all  for  a  great  deal  of  their  correspondence  and  ad- 
vice. It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  such  men  have  often  im- 
mense practice,  and  make  correspondingly  large  incomes.  It 
is  delightful  to  see  that  there  is  a  real  moral  progress  in  the 
profession,  and  thus  a  plain,  straightforward,  simple  way  of 
doing  business.  Few  men  see  more  of  the  range  and  variety 
of  human  life  than  solicitors,  and  it  is  happy  for  them  if  they 
can  pass  through  their  perilous  ordeal  with  a  sound  heart 
and  an  untainted  mind. 

There  is  no  profession  for  which  a  man  can  have  a  heartier 
liking  than  for  the  medical  profession.  For  while  it  may  be 
said  in  the  rough  that  the  law  feeds  and  battens  upon  the 
vices  and  passions  of  humanity,  the  medical  profession  pur- 
sues a  godlike,  beneficent  mission  in  administering  to  our 
diseases  and  unhappiness.  We  may  now  and  then  hear  of  a 
medical  man  who  evidently  makes  lucre  his  chief  object,  and 
acts  severely  toward  the  poor,  but  as  a  rule  the  medical  man 
constantly  relinquishes  his  just  and  hardly  earned  gains,  and 
in  many  a  household  is  an  angel  of  help  and  consolation.  It 
is  a  matter  of  regret  that  medicine  is  not  a  profession  in  which 
a  man  has  a  clear  field  and  no  favor.  The  man  who  wishes 
to  be  a  consulting  physician  must  wait  long  and  spend  much 
money,  and  drive  about  in  a  carriage  to  enable  him  to  keep 
one.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  medical  education  and  medical 
degrees  will  be  put  upon  a  better  footing  than  has  for  some 
time  been  the  case.  It  is  lamentable  to  think  of  the  young 
men  who,  by  a  process  of  cram,  can  pass  their  examinations, 
and  forthwith  obtain  a  license  to  kill,  slay,  and  destroy.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  the  profession 


OAr  THE   CHOICE   OF  A   PROFESSION.  105 

abounds  with  able  and  deserving  men,  and  that  they  contrive 
to  do  well  in  the  long  run.  They  do  not  make  fortunes,  but 
they  get  good  incomes.  Even  the  poorest  man  can  struggle  to 
the  front.  He  walks  the  hospital  to  some  purpose — becomes 
house  surgeon  ;  perhaps  he  is  only  an  apothecary,  but  collects 
a  connection  and  sinks  the  shop ;  perhaps  he  is  assistant  to 
a  practitioner,  obtains  some  public  appointment,  and  gets  into 
general  practice.  Perhaps  there  are  as  really  good  men  in 
the  provinces  or  in  the  East  End  of  London  as  among  the  fa- 
mous or  titled  physicians  of  the  West  End.  Of  all  the  profes- 
sions that  a  man  can  practice,  setting  aside  the  ministerial — 
which  may  be  considered  the  most  important,  but  in  which 
we  can  rarely  trace  visible  results — there  is  none  more  glori- 
ous or  elevating  than  the  medical  profession. 

The  scholastic  profession  alone  could  enter  very  closely  into 
the  comparison.  This  is  a  great  and  noble  profession,  which 
will  probably  receive  a  far  larger  development  than  it  has 
hitherto  attained.  We  are  now  only  commencing  a  broad 
national  education.  The  time  will  come  when,  with  the  com- 
mon schools  and  the  public  schools  and  the  colleges,  educa- 
tion will  be  extended  and  cheapened  at  the  universities  and 
throughout  the  country.  By-and-by  we  shall  have  a  vast  army 
of  a  hundred  thousand  schoolmasters  for  our  state  schools. 
At  present  our  national  schools  are  exceedingly  good ;  our 
public  schools  exceedingly  good  ;  but  the  intermediate  schools 
have  been  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  without  any  means  of 
testing  their  real  efficiency.  Much  improvement  has  been  ef- 
fected, but  we  may  look  forward  to  an  organized,  scientific 
system  of  education,  which  may  carry  on  our  land  at  an  accel- 
erated progress  to  the  van  of  the  nations. 

Every  kind  of  education,  scientific,  technical,  linguistic,  as 
well  as  the  old  lines,  will  be  more  and  more  developed,  as  it 
is  understood  that  we  must  add  the  German  Geist  to  our  Brit- 

£2 


106  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

ish  stock.  To  teach  fitly  is  as  rare  a  gift  as  any  endowment 
of  eloquence  or  art.  The  scholastic  profession  will  rise  every 
where  in  social  esteem  and  importance.  Even  now  the  aver- 
age head-master  of  a  great  public  school  is  at  least  as  import- 
ant as  an  average  bishop.  The  responsibility  of  forming  the 
character  and  foreshadowing  the  history  of  those  committed 
to  one's  care  is  exceedingly  great,  and  the  honor  should  be 
correspondingly  great. 

The  scholastic  profession  is  now  a  regular  business,  of 
which  the  clergy  have  the  largest  part.  The  class-lists  at  the 
universities,  especially  perhaps  at  Cambridge,  furnish  the  cri- 
terion by  which  the  public  mainly  judge  of  the  capacity  of 
masters.  Such  a  criterion,  however,  simply  shows  the  capac- 
ity of  a  man  for  imbibing  knowledge,  and  is  not  in  itself  a 
proof  of  his  capacity  to  impart  it.  A  good  degree  enables  a 
man  at  once  to  obtain  a  lucrative  mastership,  and,  as  he  gains 
experience,  he  goes  on  to  the  greater  prizes  of  the  profession. 
A  good  degree  has  thus  a  large  monetary  value.  A  senior 
wrangler  or  a  senior  classic  ought  to  make  his  place  on  the 
list  worth  some  ten  thousand  pounds  to  him,  and  a  place  only 
a  little  below  his  would  have  a  not  much  inferior  value.  A 
good  schoolmaster  will  show  that  he  is  fit  not  only  to  instruct, 
but  to  educate,  to  develop  the  character  as  well  as  the  intel- 
lect of  boys,  treading  in  the  steps  of  an  Arnold  or  a  Bradley. 

We  come  now  to  the  government  appointments  that  are  ob- 
tained by  competitive  examinations.  The  first  example  of 
these  was  the  Indian  civil  service,  and  this  service  still  offers 
the  chief  prizes  in  this  direction.  There  is  nowhere  in  the  em- 
pire a  nobler  career  open  to  a  man,  a  career  where  the  possi- 
bilities are  so  splendid  as  in  India.  To  a  man  of  good  char- 
acter and  temperate  habits,  living  in  India  is  cheap  and  not 
unwholesome.  The  examination  for  the  civil  service  is  ex- 


ON  THE    CHOICE   OF  A   PROFESSION. 


107 


ceedingly  broad  and  fair,  one  of  great  compass  and  variety.  A 
man  may  make  almost  any  intellectual  pursuit,,  almost  any 
scrap  of  knowledge,  available  for  this  examination.  If  he  has 
not  had  the  advantage  of  a  university  education  and  good 
honors  in  classics  and  mathematics,  still,  if  he  thoroughly  un- 
derstands the  language,  literature,  and  history  of  his  country, 
and  other  intellectual  pursuits,  his  chance  is  good. 

In  1870  a  wide  revolution  was  effected  in  every  department 
of  the  civil  service  of  the  crown.  The  nomination  system  was 
almost  entirely  swept  away,  and  the  system  of  competitive  ex- 
aminations was  substituted.  The  Order  of  Council  issued  at 
Balmoral  threw  open  the  whole  vast  civil  patronage  of  En- 
gland, and  added  a  very  sensible  proviso  that  every  appoint- 
ment should  be  probationary  for  six  months,  and  liable  to  be 
canceled  through  any  unfitness  of  the  person  appointed.  This 
order  will  probably  lend  a  vast  impetus  to  the  educational 
progress  of  the  country,  and  is,  indeed,  the  proper  appendix 
to  our  recent  legislation  on  education.  Perhaps  an  exagger- 
ated value  has  been  popularly  assigned  to  government  ap- 
pointments, and  when  they  are  open  instead  of  close  there 
may  not  be  such  a  lively  appreciation  of  them.  The  service 
of  the  government  is  hardly  so  profitable  as  the  service  of  the 
people.  At  the  commencement  and  the  end  of  a  career  a 
man  perhaps  obtains  a  distinct  advantage,  but  a  man  in  the 
full  flush  of  energy  and  work  has  hardly  sufficiently  free  ex* 
pansion  for  his  powers,  and  has  lost  the  chances  which  active 
life  affords  him. 

In  any  review  of  the  professions,  the  army  and  navy  should 
be  considered,  and  the  dangers  and  exigencies  of  the  country 
will  doubtless  give  an  increased  importance  to  the  two  arms 
of  the  service.  No  commissions  are  purchasable  in  the  artil- 
lery, and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  example  will  every  where 
be  followed.  It  is  a  regrettable  circumstance  that  neither  in 


I08  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

the  army  nor  in  the  navy  can  a  man  very  easily  subsist  upon 
his  pay.  The  position  of  the  poor  officer  is  in  much  analogous 
to  that  of  the  poor  curate.  He  may  see  a  younger  man  pro- 
moted over  his  head  when  all  the  merit  is  on  his  own  side. 
It  may  be  reasonably  expected  that  before  long  every  effort 
will  be  made  to  render  the  two  arms  more  popular  through- 
out the  country,  and  to  give  them  the  substantial  rewards  they 
merit.  The  worth  of  the  new  arrangements  has  yet  to  be 
tested. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  make  a  survey  of  the  various  pur- 
suits of  trade  and  commerce,  and  it  may  be  observed  gener- 
ally that,  of  those  which  deal  with  the  luxuries  of  society,  the 
work  of  the  artist  and  architect  and  author,  while  in  some 
Cases  they  give  gain  and  name,  in  many  others  they  afford 
only  a  scanty  and  precarious  subsistence.  The  businesses 
that  deal  with  the  actual  wants  of  society,  the  eating  and 
drinking  and  clothing,  the  home  and  travel,  while  they  often 
yield  enormous  profits,  are  also  more  equable  and  permanent 
in  their  returns.  There  is  sometimes  a  great  deal  of  foolish 
pride  generated  in  a  comparison  of  professions  and  trades, 
which  fosters  the  conventionality,  the  exclusiveness,  the  feel- 
ings of  caste  and  class.  There  is  much  in  this  that  is  igno- 
ble, that  is  narrow  and  narrowing ;  something,  too,  that  is  in- 
human and  unchristian.  As  Christians  we  have  all  innumer- 
able points  of  contact  and  sympathy ;  the  points  in  which 
men  differ  are  as  nothing  to  the  points  in  which  they  agree. 
It  makes  very  little  difference  what  parts  in  life  we  are  called 
upon  to  play,  but  it  makes  all  the  difference  whether  we  act 
them  well,  simply,  and  nobly.  To  use  an  old  similitude,  it  is 
not  asked  in  any  dramatic  performance  who  played  the  king, 
or  who  the  hero  or  the  peasant ;  the  only  question  is  whether 
the  character  is  played  well  or  not.  The  noblest  kind  of  fame 
is  open  to  the  lowliest ;  to  quote  the  solemn  music  of  Lycidas : 


ON   THE    CHOICE    OF  A    PROFESSION.  109 

"  Fame  is  no  plant  that  grows  on  mortal  soil, 
Nor  in  the  glittering  foil 
Set  off  to  the  world;  nor  in  broad  rumor  lies, 
But  lives  and  grows  aloft  in  those  pure  eyes 

And  perfect  witness  of  all-judging  Jove. 
As  he  pronounces  lastly  on  each  deed, 
Of  so  much  fame  in  heaven  expect  thy  meed." 

Of  course  there  is  a  very  large  class  of  people  who  have  no 
call  to  enter  a  profession.  To  use  a  current  expression,  a 
man  says  that  "  he  has  had  a  father  before  him."  The  exist- 
ence of  such  a  class  is  a  great  element  in  the  strength  and  or- 
nament of  a  state.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  work  to  be  done 
in  a  country  for  which  only  in  a  very  limited  way  there  is  any 
distinct  class  of  workmen.  For  instance,  in  statesmanship, 
that  is  of  necessity  a  very  limited  class  that  can  afford  to  fol- 
low politics  as  a  profession.  Our  statesmen  must  be  mainly 
recruited  from  a  class  who  are  quite  independent  of  its  pos- 
sible rewards.  Again,  take  literature.  We  have  a  large  class 
of  literary  men  who  find  literature  as  regular,  though  hardly 
as  gainful  a  calling  as  any  other.  In  journalism  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  that  there  should  be  such  a  class.  It  forms 
now  a  distinct  profession,  to  which  the  best  men  give  their 
best  energies.  If  the  case  were  otherwise,  our  newspapers 
would  not  lead  the  entire  newspaper  press  of  the  world.  But 
literature,  pure  and  simple,  ought  not  to  be  considered  a  pro- 
fession, and  it  must  be  a  matter  of  regret  that  it  is  often  so 
spoken  of.  Every  man  who  has  original  ideas  of  his  own,  or 
a  valuable  experience  of  his  own,  is  free  of  the  company  of 
authors,  and  can  make  his  entry  into  their  ranks.  It  is  for 
the  good  of  national  literature  that  men  should  enter  the  ranks 
of  literature  who  are  not  obliged  to  earn  bread  for  the  day 
that  is  passing  over  them,  and  who  have  the  leisure  and  means 
that  will  enable  them  to  think  out  thoroughly  their  ideas,  and, 
if  necessary,  observe  the  Horatian  rule  of  keeping  their  com- 


no  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

positions  for  years,  and  can  calmly  endure  the  neglect  of  the 
public  in  the  faith  that  time  will  give  them  the  recognition 
they  deserve.  So  Bacon  dedicated  his  works  to  Prince  Pos- 
terity, and  Swift  inscribed  one  of  his  books  to  the  generation 
after  the  next.  The  existence  of  an  independent  and  cultured 
class  who,  liberated  from  the  ordinary  incentives  to  exertion, 
are  able  to  devote  themselves  to  the  investigation  of  any  kind 
of  truth,  is  an  immense  gain  to  a  nation  and  a  nation's  litera- 
ture. Similarly  in  regard  to  works  of  philanthropy.  Chris- 
tian men,  beyond  the  ordinary  consecration  of  all  their  work 
to  God,  generally  strive  in  some  direct  way  to  serve  in  some 
special  work,  such  as  the  visitation  of  the  poor  or  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  ignorant.  Still  the  great  work  of  philanthropy,  in 
its  complex  organization,  might  languish  if  it  were  left  to  the 
surplus  energies  of  hard-working  men.  Here,  again,  the  im- 
mense importance  of  a  leisurely  and  educated  class  is  seen. 
Such  a  class  ought  to  stand  in  the  van  of  society.  In  politics 
it  should  stand  in  advance  of  professed  politicians,  as  emanci- 
pated from  temptations,  liberated  from  the  swaying  power  of 
many  conflicting  interests.  In  society  it  should  be  a  great 
motive  power  in  mitigating  the  effect  of  mere  vulgar  wealth, 
in  giving  a  due  pre-eminence  to  mind  and  character. 

A  very  fine  example  of  this  class  may  be  found  in  the  late 
Edward  Denison,  who  made  great  sacrifices,  and  devoted  him- 
self solely  to  the  improvement  and  elevation  of  the  working- 
classes.  There  are  living  men  who  might  be  similarly  men- 
tioned, but  we  must  remember  that  it  is  not  lawful  to  sacrifice 
to  heroes  before  sunset.  Yet  such  men  as  Mr.  Peabody  and 
Lord  Shaftesbury  may  be  named  as  among  the  most  conspic- 
uous instances.  The  Memoir  of  Mr.  Denison  was  at  first 
privately  printed,  like  those  of  Lords  Kingsdown,  Broughton, 
and  Chichester,  but  has  since  been  published.  Writing  before 
the  publication,  we  fell  back  on  a  paper  in  the  Saturday  Re- 


ON  THE   CHOICE    OF  A   PROFESSION.  1 1 1 

view  to  help  us  with  our  illustration  of  the  philanthropic  life. 
It  is  written  in  the  best  style  of  that  variously  hued  periodical : 
"Born  at  Salisbury  in  1840,  he  was  son  of  the  then  bishop 
of  that  diocese,  and  nephew  of  the  speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Educated  at  Eton  and  Christ  Church,  he  was 
prevented  from  achieving  equal  university  distinctions  to  those 
of  his  father  and  three  uncles  by  ill-health  resulting  from  over- 
training for  the  boat-races  of  his  school-days.  This  ill-health 
clave  to  him  more  or  less  throughout  the  rest  of  his  career,  as 
may  be  surmised  from  the  fact  that  he  wrote  many  of  his  let- 
ters from  Madeira,  Italy,  the  South  of  France,  Bournemouth, 
and  other  places  visited  in  quest  of  stronger  lungs  and  con- 
stitution. But  every  where  the  bent  of  his  mind  was  toward 
a  study  of  the  condition  and  habits  of  the  poor,  and  from  1862 
to  1870,  when  he  died,  the  work  of  his  life  seems  to  have  been 
theoretical  and  experimental  devotion  to  the  amelioration,  on 
sound  principles,  of  the  classes  which  come  within  the  range 
of  the  poor-laws.  With  this  end  in  view  he  went  to  Stepney 
to  cope  personally  with  the  great  East  End  distress,  taking  up 
his  quarters  for  the  best  part  of  a  year  at  Philpot  Street,  Mile 
End  Road,  and  building  and  endowing  a  school  there  for  the 
teaching  of  ragged  children,  while  he  himself  lectured  to  work- 
ing-class adults.  He  offered  himself  in  1868  for  the  borough 
of  Newark,  and,  having  been  elected  after  a  contest  in  which 
he  distinguished  himself  by  the  candor  and  independence  of 
his  hustings  speeches,  sat  as  its  member  for  a  brief  year,  and 
drew  the  attention  of  thoughtful  minds  within  and  without  the 
House  by  an  able  maiden-speech  on  Mr.  Corrance's  motion 
relative  to  pauperism  (May  10,  1869).  But  the  labors  of  the 
session  precipitated  his  removal  from  a  field  of  usefulness  in 
which  he  made  social  questions  his  specialty.  He  had  to 
leave  England  once  more  in  quest  of  health,  and  after  a  visit 
to  Guernsey,  and  the  relinquishment  of  a  projected  visit  to  the 


H2  TURNIXG-POINTS  LV  LIFE. 

United  States,  each  planned  with  an  eye  to  the  absorbing  pur- 
pose of  his  life,  he  finally  repaired  to  Melbourne  in  a  sailing 
ship,  where,  as  the  voyage  had  injured  his  health  instead  of 
improving  it,  he  died  (January  26,  1870)  within  a  fortnight 
after  landing. 

"  A  mere  summary,  however,  can  not  do  justice  to  such  a 
man's  life  and  acts,  much  less  to  the  animating  principle  of 
them,  and  to  the  carefully  ripened  and  well-stored  mind  which 
avoided  the  visionary  and  grasped  the  practical  in  all  that  it 
attempted.  The  letters  themselves  must  be  studied  for  an 
insight  into  that  mind  and  the  work  it  did.  Though  here  and 
there  a  fear  is  expressed  lest  it  might  be  thought  so,  there 
was  nothing  narrow  or  timid,  certainly  nothing  indicative  of 
worship  of  expediency,  in  the  character  of  Edward  Denison's 
mind.  Well-trained  and  taught,  it  shrank  from  violent  changes 
and  hasty  choices.  He  held  aloof,  with  instinctive  caution, 
from  divers  schemes  and  associations  as  to  which  he  was  not 
satisfied  about  the  wisdom  of  the  promoters.  '  I  am  ready,' 
he  writes,  in  one  place,  'to  dig  in  the  vineyard,  but  I  don't 
feel  bound  to  imitate  every  vagary  of  my  fellow- laborers.' 
And  one  can  understand  why  such  a  man,  when  solicited  to 
join  the  Church  Union,  declined  on  the  ground  that  '  he 
already  belonged  to  the  best  possible  union — that  body 
which  is  the  blessed  company  of  all  faithful  people.'  Wheth- 
er in  religion  or  politics  or  social  science,  he  looked  wistfully 
for  the  practical  element,  and  where  he  suspected  a  lack  of 
this  he  hung  aloof,  and  risked  the  charge  of  lukewarmness 
rather  than  go  blindfold  with  a  clique  putting  undue  trust  in 
legislation  for  moral  improvement,  or  commit  himself  to  the 
dogmas  of  extreme  partisans.  Yet  there  was  nothing  halting 
in  his  rule  of  life.  '  Real  life,'  he  writes,  'is  not  dinner  parties 
or  small  talk,  nor  even  croquet  and  dancing.'  Literature  and 
study  were  with  him  means  to  an  end ;  they  were  the  cultiva- 


ON  THE    CHOICE   OF  A   PROFESSION.  113 

tion  of  his  gifts  with  a  view  to  enhancing  his  capacity  to  bene- 
fit his  fellow-creatures.  And  so,  in  the  course  of  elementary 
Bible  teaching  which  he  gave  single-handed  to  a  roomful  of 
dock-laborers  at  the  East  End,  and  in  which  he  used  illustra- 
tions from  human  nature,  natural  religion,  and  secular  history, 
we  can  not  doubt  that  his  reading  reproduced  itself  with  good 
effect.  '  If  John  Baptist  had  stood  up  in  a  half-empty  syna- 
gogue, and  had  said,  I  wish  the  publicans  and  harlots  would 
come  here,  because  then  I  would  teach  them  to  repent,  how 
many  would  he  have  been  likely  to  baptize  ?  And  if  Christ 
had  limited  his  teaching  in  the  same  way,  what  chance  would 
there  have  been,  think  you,  of  founding  Christianity  ?'  But, 
having  made  the  proffer,  he  did  not  fret  about  its  acceptance 
or  non-acceptance.  '  No  man  may  deliver  his  brother,  he  can 
but  throw  him  a  plank.'  Meanwhile  his  personal  self-abne- 
gation stands  out  undesignedly  on  the  face  of  his  letters.  If 
he  dilates,  in  January,  on  the  delights  of  skating,  it  leads  him 
to  remark  that  he  would  give  up  the  pleasures  of  frost  a  thou- 
sand times  rather  than  enjoy  them  'poisoned  by  the  misery  of 
so  many  of  our  brethren.'  'I  have  come  to  this,'  he  writes  in 
the  September  of  1867, '  that  a  walk  along  Piccadilly  is  a  most 
exhilarating  treat.  I  don't  enjoy  it  above  once  in  ten  days, 
but  therefore  with  double  zest.' 

"  So  minded,  Edward  Denison  could  not  but  carry  out 
heartily  that  which  his  hand  found  to  do.  Convinced  that 
the  bad  condition  of  the  population  at  the  East  End  was  due 
chiefly  to  '  the  total  absence  of  residents  of  a  better  class,  and 
to  the  dead  level  of  labor,'  convinced,  too,  that '  the  mere  pres- 
ence of  a  gentleman  known  to  be  on  the  alert  to  keep  local 
authorities  up  to  their  work  is  inestimable,'  he  took  up  his 
quarters  in  a  district  the  precise  locality  of  which  one  of  his 
letters  describes  with  a  humorous  topographical  accuracy,  and 
which  was  simply  the  antipodes  of  fashionable  or  even  busi- 


114 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


ness  London.  There  he  set  himself  to  wrestle  wkh  pauperism 
by  setting  his  face  against  bread  and  meat  and  money  doles, 
and  by  combining  with  others  to  deal  radically  with  a  few 
cases  of  aggravated,  distress ;  while  he  coped  with  irreligion 
and  indifference  by  throwing  himself  into  the  work  of  a  lay 
evangelist,  and  becoming  the  animating  spirit  of  a  working- 
men's  club  of  the  better  sort,  and  an  active,  hopeful  teacher 
of  boys  and  adults  as  occasion  required.  Clearly  convinced 
from  the  first  that  indiscriminate  charity  is  mischievous,  and 
that  giving  money  only  undoes  the  work  of  the  new  poor-law, 
he  read  and  thought  and  traveled,  whenever  he  did  travel, 
with  an  eye  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure. 

"  In  an  early  letter  he  justifies  lamentation  over  those  who 
die  with  their  part  unfinished,  and  the  first  portion  of  their 
career  broken  off,  as  it  were,  with  a  ragged  edge.  A  curious 
anticipation  of  his  own  cutting  short !  We  may  deem  that,  in 
the  eye  of  Providence,  the  hour  was  not  ripe ;  or  such  inten- 
sity of  purpose,  with  so  holy  an  end  in  view,  would  surely  have 
been  allowed  to  achieve,  in  a  lengthened  term  of  usefulness, 
the  solution  of  the  great  problem  of  these  latter  days.  That 
the  end  is  not  yet  must  be  the  secret  of  so  sharp  and  prema- 
ture a  removal." 

It  must  be  allowed  that  the  choice  of  a  profession  is  one 
of  the  most  important  turning-points  in  life.  If  a  man  deter- 
mines not  to  enter  a  profession,  such  a  determination  is  prob- 
ably a  more  decisive  turning-point  than  any  other.  The  best 
practical  advice  perhaps  is  that  the  bias  and  tendency  of  a 
boy  should  be  understood,  and  the  object  in  life  early  defined, 
to  which  he  can  work  up.  Nothing  is  more  to  be  deprecated 
than  the  aimless,  desultory  way  in  which  so  many  young  men 
are  unfortunately  brought  up  ;  and  nothing  gives  the  character 
so  much  strength  and  energy  as  a  definite  object.  That  is  a 


ON  THE    CHOICE    OF  A   PROFESSION.  115 

time  of  very  great  perplexity  to  young  men  when  their  path  in 
life  is  obscure,  and  they  doubt  whither  they  shall  turn.  The 
way  is  often  indicated  to  them  by  their  self-knowledge,  their 
knowledge  of  their  own  ability  or  inability,  and  by  the  open- 
ings which  Providence  seems  to  indicate  to  them.  Well  for 
them  if  they  can  realize  the  words  of  the  sacred  poet  in  choos- 
ing their  path  in  life — words  which  they  will,  perhaps,  often 
repeat  while  making  their  toilsome  march  through  the  careful 
years : 

"  Lead,  Kindly  Light,  amid  the  encircling  gloom 

Lead  Thou  me  on. 
The  night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home ; 

Lead  Thou  me  on. 

Guide  Thou  my  steps ;  I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene ;  one  step  enough  for  me. 

"  I  was  not  always  thus,  nor  prayed  that  Thou 

Shouldst  lead  me  on. 
I  loved  to  see  and  choose  my  path,  but  now 

Lead  Thou  me  on. 

I  loved  the  garish  day,  and,  spite  of  fears, 
Pride  ruled  my  will ;  remember  not  past  years. 

"  So  long  Thy  love  has  spared  me,  sure  it  will 

Still  lead  me  on, 
O'er  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and  torrent,  till 

The  night  be  gone. 

And  with  the  morn  those  angel  faces  smile 
That  I  have  loved  long  since,  and  lost  awhile," 


Il6  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Taking  Holy   Orders. 

WHEN  some  men  speak  of  "  taking  a  living,"  Mrs.  Glasse's 
suggestion  about  cooking  a  hare — that  we  should  first  catch  it 
— may  probably  occur  to  the  clerical  reader.  How  to  catch 
the  living  is,  indeed,  the  anxious  problem  of  the  curate-mind. 
That  mind  is  fully  convinced  that  promotion  does  not  come 
either  from  the  east  or  from  the  west.  The  common  notion 
of  preferment  is  that  of  Sydney  Smith,  that  it  is  all  a  lottery, 
where  you  may  draw  a  prize,  or,  much  more  probably,  a  blank. 
But  ecclesiastical  preferment  is  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  mere 
system  of  haphazard.  Things  work  very  much  here  as  else- 
where— in  a  groove.  It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  to  meet 
with  a  man  who  has  refused  a  dozen  or  half-a-dozen  livings. 
It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing,  either,  to  meet  with  a  curate 
who  has  never  known  the  pleasant  excitement  of  such  a  prop- 
osition. That  depends  whether  you  are  on  the  groove  or  off 
the  groove,  whether  you  are  really  on  the  line  or  have  been 
shunted  to  some  siding.  However,  when  the  living  is  really 
obtained,  and  the  much-deserving  ecclesiastic  is  admitted  into 
the  comfortable  circle  of  those  who  obtain  the  temporalities 
of  the  Church,  he  becomes  a  person  of  enlarged  social  import- 
ance, and  as  such  is  liable  to  be  subjected  to  a  microscopical 
investigation  by  the  philosophical  sociologist,  whose  kind  has 
been  so  largely  developed  of  recent  date. 

A  few  preliminary  words  may,  however,  be  said  on  the  sub- 
ject of  getting  a  living.  Livings  are  generally  disposed  of 


TAKING  HOLY  ORDERS.  117 

on  so  regular  a  system  that  only  an  inconsiderable  proportion 
come  under  the  definition  of  blanks  or  prizes.  The  family- 
living  goes  to  some  member  of  the  family.  The  college-liv- 
ing goes  to  some  fellow  of  the  college.  The  chapter-living 
goes  to  some  member  of  the  chapter  or  his  nominee.  It  may 
so  happen  that  the  younger  son  may  rebel  against  the  ecclesi- 
astical arrangement ;  or  that  the  fellows  are  all  so  cozy  and 
comfortable  that  they  do  not  care  to  move ;  or  that  the  living 
in  question  may  be  beneath  the  serious  attention  of  cathedral 
dignitaries,  and  thus  even  the  benefices  may  wander — heaven- 
directed — to  some  poor  parson.  It  is  to  be  said,  to  the  great 
credit  of  the  bishops,  that  their  patronage  is  generally  admin- 
istered on  fair  and  intelligible  principles.  Some  may  favor  the 
High  Church,  some  the  Low  Church,  and  of  one  or  two  it  is 
said  that,  with  rigid  impartiality,  they  bestow  their  patronage 
alternately.  But  it  is  commonly  asserted  in  clerical  circles 
that  the  man  who  has  no  interest  in  the  Church  does  best  to 
settle  himself  down  quietly  to  some  curacy  for  a  great  number 
of  years,  at  the  end  of  which  his  bishop  may  probably  do 
something  for  him,  or,  at  all  events,  if  the  bishop  does  not, 
no  body  else  will.  The  curate  who  clings  doggedly  to  his 
curacy  for  a  great  number  of  years  is  a  great  pet  with  bish- 
ops, but  we  are  not  at  all  certain  that  it  might  not  have  been 
better  for  the  curate,  and  better  for  his  people,  that  they  should 
have  had  more  change.  Wesley's  two-year  system,  now  en- 
larged to  three  years,  though  an  exaggeration,  is  an  important 
and  useful  regulation.  When  the  living  comes,  the  success  is 
often  a  source  of  congratulation  and  enjoyment.  The  curate 
reads  with  rapture  a  letter  from  his  bishop,  offering  him  the 
living  of  Marsh-cum-Bogland,  with  every  expression  of  person- 
al confidence  and  esteem.  But  when  it  is  discovered  that 
Marsh-cum-Bogland  is  worth  sixty  five  pounds  a  year,  and  has 
no  house,  the  ardor  of  gratitude  insensibly  cools.  It  is  never- 


n8  TURNING  POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

theless  very  remarkable  how  even  very  small  livings  are  ea- 
gerly sought  for  by  dozens  who  have  some  modest  patrimony 
of  their  own.  We  observed  that  when  a  patron  of  a  small 
living  lately  advertised  for  an  incumbent,  he  had  hundreds  of 
answers.  When  a  chancellor's  living  becomes  vacant,  there 
are  generally  hundreds  of  applications,  and  his  secretary  of 
presentations  must  always  be  involved  in  voluminous  corre- 
spondence. Some  chancellors  delight  in  the  exercise  of  pat- 
ronage, while  others  consider  it  the  greatest  of  bores.  But 
we  imagine  that  the  experience  of  most  keepers  of  the  great 
seal  would  show  that  they  are  not  allowed  to  exercise  it  un- 
molested. Lord  Eldon,  we  know,  was  greatly  importuned  by 
Queen  Charlotte  in  the  disposition  of  his  patronage,  and  such 
royal  influence  is  by  no  means  out  of  date  at  the  present  time. 
Of  course,  political  considerations  frequently  determine  Church 
patronage ;  and,  in  the  absence  of  any  definite  principles  of 
promotion  by  desert,  this  system  acts  nearly  as  well  as  any 
other  could.  The  minister  himself — Lord  Palmerston  was  a 
case  in  point — is  sometimes  so  hampered  by  party  considera- 
tions that  he  is  unable  to  attend  to  his  personal  predilections. 
If  a  lord-lieutenant  or  a  county  member  reports  that  it  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  for  his  party  in  a  certain  part  of  his  coun- 
try that  some  vacancy  should  be  filled  up  in  a  particular  man- 
ner, the  minister  has  to  give  way.  We  remember  the  case 
of  a  distinguished  Oxford  divine,  who  brought  a  Whig  chan- 
cellor a  very  vehement  demand  from  the  lord-lieutenant  of  a 
county  that  he  should  be  preferred  to  a  vacant  benefice. 
The  chancellor  came  in  his  robes  of  office  from  the  bench  to 
his  private  room  to  see  the  applicant.  He  swore  like  a  cab- 
man when  he  read  the  letter,  and  gave  the  trembling  clergy- 
man the  living  with  curses  which  an  Ernulphus  might  envy. 

We  know  a  man  with  a  very  important  position  quite  unable 
to  trace  how  the  unknown  path  of  preferment  opened  up  to 


TAKING  HOLY  ORDERS. 


119 


him.  One  of  our  ablest  bishops  on  the  bench  came  to  his 
position  by  mere  accident.  An  important  position,  which 
generally  led  to  a  mitre,  became  vacant.  It  was  offered  to  an 
aged  clergyman,  who  said  he  was  too  old  to  accept  it,  but  ad- 
vised the  premier  to  go  to  an  obscure  church  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, where  he  might  hear  a  really  able  man.  This  clergy- 
man subsequently  obtained  the  great  preferment,  which  led 
afterward,  in  due  course,  to  a  bishopric.  We  have  known  of 
instances  in  which  the  patron,  after  service,  has  stepped  into 
the  vestry  and  offered  preferment  to  the  officiating  clergyman. 
We  trust  that  the  mention  of  this  circumstance  will  inspire  pa- 
trons and  preachers  with  a  noble  emulation.  These  anec- 
dotes, however,  are  by  no  means  of  a  uniformly  pleasing  type. 
A  very  worthy  clergyman  of  my  acquaintance,  in  bad  health 
and  with  scanty  means,  received  a  communication  one  day 
from  a  prime  minister  to  the  effect  that  a  very  valuable  living 
in  the  balmy  Devonshire  climate  had  been  bestowed  upon 
him.  He  was  full  of  happiness ;  the  preferment  which  he 
had  been  led  to  expect  was  come  at  last,  and  for  him  meant 
health,  ease,  and  competence.  A  few  weeks  afterward  he  re- 
ceived another  letter  from  the  premier  saying  it  was  all  a  mis- 
take, and  that  this  living  was  bestowed  elsewhere.  It  is  hard- 
ly too  much  to  say  that  the  shock  of  the  disappointment  caused 
his  death. 

We  will  suppose  that  a  patron  has  chosen  his  man.  The 
proper  thing  for  the  patron  to  do  is  to  have  the  deeds  drawn 
up  by  his  own  solicitor,  send  an  invitation  to  his  clerical 
friend,  and  crown  the  evening  by  a  pleasant  surprise.  This 
kind  of  ecclesiastical  etiquette  is  highly  appreciated  in  clerical 
circles.  The  expenses  of  induction  to  Church  preferment  are 
very  great,  and  not  unfrequently  absorb  the  first  year's  income. 
It  was  mentioned  the  other  day,  at  a  public  meeting  in  Cam- 
bridge, that  the  Bishop  of  Worcester,  in  appointing  two  clergy- 


120  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

men  to  livings,  sent  each  of  them  a  fifty-pound  note  toward 
the  expenses.  Then  the  clergyman  informs  the  bishop's  sec- 
retary of  his  nomination,  with  a  view  to  institution.  In  some 
dioceses  the  clergyman  is  called  upon  to  submit  to  an  exami- 
nation. This  is  a  word  of  horror  to  the  bucolic  parson,  whose 
mind  has  been  greatly  running  into  turnips.  It  is,  indeed, 
rather  severe  to  require  a  gray-haired  man,  who  has  long 
ceased  to  fret  himself  about  the  Articles,  to  submit  to  an  ex- 
amination by  a  young  man  who  is  comparatively  fresh  from 
the  cram  of  a  university.  The  examination,  however,  is  now 
becoming  a  great  rarity,  and  ought  to  be  prized  accordingly 
by  the  examinee.  On  an  appointed  day  the  promoted  clergy- 
man has  to  attend  at  the  bishop's  palace  to  receive  institu- 
tion.* The  palace  may  be  near  at  hand,  or  he  may  have  to 
traverse  a  considerable  section  of  the  map  of  England  before 
he  gets  there.  Hospitality  is  an  episcopal  virtue,  and  the 
traveling  ecclesiastic  may  confidently  rely  on  a  substantial 
lunch.  Still,  there  are  variations  in  hospitality.  Some  bish- 
ops are  charming  hosts,  and  an  early  lunch  with  such  a  one 
is  a  thing  to  be  remembered.  One  or  two  of  them  do  not 
"  show"  at  the  lunch,  and,  to  some  minds,  thus  fail  in  the  chief 
requisite  of  a  genuine  hospitality.  Then  a  variety  of  oaths 
is  taken.  Inter  alia,  the  incumbent  swears  that  he  will  do  his 
"  utmost  endeavor  to  disclose  and  make  known  to  Her  Maj- 
esty, her  heirs,  and  successors,  all  treasons  and  traitorous 
conspiracies  that  may  be  formed  against  her  or  them."  When 
these  objurgations  are  complete,  a  mystic  ceremony  is  trans- 
acted. A  parchment  is  produced,  with  a  huge  seal  attached  ; 
the  clergyman  kneels  on  a  stool,  holding  the  seal  in  his  hand, 
while  the  bishop  reads  aloud  the  legal  document  which  gives 

*  The  Bishop  of  Lichfield,  or  one  of  his  coadjutors,  inducts  the  new  in- 
cumbent into  his  parish  church  in  the  presence  of  the  congregation — an 
example  deserving  general  imitation. 


TAKING  HOLY  ORDERS.  12i 

institution.  The  business  of  the  day  is  over,  with  the  import- 
ant exception  of  the  payment  of  fees  in  the  muniment-room. 
Two  other  ceremonies  are  requisite  before  things  are  com- 
plete. The  incumbent,  when  inducted  into  the  living,  is  left 
alone  in  the  church  to  toll  the  bell,  and  has  to  read  aloud  the 
Articles  in  the  church,  and  declare  his  unfeigned  consent  to 
them.  The  incoming  incumbent  receives  the  income  of  the 
benefice  from  the  very  day  of  the  decease,  or  cession,  of  his 
predecessor,  excepting  the  statutable  stipend  of  the  curate, 
or  the  clergyman  who  has  officiated  at  the  instance  of  the 
church-warden  during  the  interregnum.  He  has,  probably, 
also  to  receive  a  sum  of  money,  either  large  or  small,  from 
the  estate  of  his  predecessor,  on  the  score  of  dilapidations. 

The  social  position  to  be  occupied  by  a  man  who  has  just 
taken  a  living  is  important  and  peculiar.  He  is  coming  to  a 
place  where,  in  all  human  probability,  he  will  spend  the  re- 
mainder of  his  days,  where  his  sayings  and  doings  will  be 
carefully  scrutinized,  and  where  his  earliest  proceedings  will 
go  forth  to  make  or  mar  the  happiness  and  usefulness  of  his 
career.  He  will  have  to  secure  the  good  opinion  of  the  gen- 
try, who  will  come  up  from  places  far  and  wide  to  call  upon 
him  ;  of  the  poor  cottagers,  who  will  eagerly  expect  his  visits 
and  his  help  ;  and  of  the  watchful,  jealous  tradesmen,  who  will 
gossip  about  his  expenditure,  and  be  critical  about  his  ser- 
mons. To  this  last  class  a  slight  is  worse  than  heresy,  and 
impecuniosity  is  a  deadly  sin.  Still,  a  great  deal  of  generous 
allowance  and  consideration  will  be  shown  him,  which  he  will 
do  well  to  conciliate  and  preserve.  Such  a  man  has  a  life- 
long work  to  do  for  God,  and  he  has  need  of  the  qualities 
which  will  wear  well.  In  a  large  town  a  popular  preacher 
may  fill  a  church  ;  but  in  the  country,  preaching  is  altogether 
subordinate  to  practice.  Whatever  else  he  may  be,  he  must 
be  just,  truthful,  courteous,  and  modest.  A  well-managed 

F 


I22  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

parish  will  be  dependent  on  a  well-ordered  household.  When 
a  man  has  once  thoroughly  conciliated  the  esteem  of  his  pa- 
rishioners, it  is  wonderful  what  he  may  venture  to  say  and  do 
among  them ;  hardly  a  censorious  voice  will  be  heard  so  long 
as  it  is  felt  that  he  is  thoroughly  in  earnest,  and  omits  no  duty. 
It  is  by  such  clergymen,  thoroughly  in  earnest,  and  shirking 
no  duty,  that  the  great  work  of  education,  charity,  religion, 
and  civilization,  is  mainly  carried  on  throughout  the  country. 
They  ordinarily  live  remote,  obscure,  and  noiseless  lives,  with- 
out the  power  or  the  will  to  attract  any  large  measure  of  pub- 
lic attention  to  themselves ;  but  none  the  less  they  do  a  great 
work,  by  gentle  teaching  and  eloquent  example,  reclaiming 
many  a  moral  wilderness,  so  that  it "  blossoms  as  the  rose." 

We  add  a  clerical  letter,  written  or  supposed  to  be  written 
by  a  clergyman  long  in  orders  to  a  young  man  at  college,  who 
is  deliberating  whether  he  shall  enter  the  Church : 

"  MY  DEAR  FRIEND, — I  thank  you  for  your  kind  and  affec- 
tionate letter.  I  see  that  in  your  case  the  time  has  arrived, 
as  to  all  of  us,  of  taking  some  great  resolve  and  acting  upon 
it.  You  ask  me,  as  a  faithful  counselor,  to  give  you  my  ad- 
vice about  taking  holy  orders,  to  decide  as  I  would  decide 
myself,  were  I  in  your  place.  I  would  not  shrink  from  under- 
taking  much  troublesome  responsibility  in  order  to  serve  you, 
but  there  are  some  things  which  it  is  impossible  for  one  man 
to  depute  to  another.  I  can  not  even  advise  you.  I  can  only 
lay  before  you  certain  facts  which  may  assist  you  in  coming 
to  a  conclusion — that  is  to  say,  you  may  have,  honestly  enough, 
my  own  experience,  and  I  hope  it  may  be  of  use  to  you. 

"  At  the  same  time,  do  not  let  this  experience  of  mine  weigh 
with  you  too  far.  It  may  seem  to  you  sombre,  perhaps  unduly 
sombre,  and  that  a  per  contra  remains  to  be  stated.  This  1 
am  very  far  from  denying.  I  am  one  of  those  whom  the  world 
calls  disappointed  men ;  but  at  the  same  time  I  do  not  see 


TAKING  HOLY  ORDERS.  123 

how  I  could  have  been  able  to  avoid  those  disappointments. 
I  am  a  shunted  man.  A  hapless  parliamentary  train  is  shunted 
on  to  a  side-cutting  that  the  express,  fast  and  splendid,  may 
dash  forward.  I  was  a  passenger  in  the  parliamentary.  I 
was  shunted  to  the  side-cutting.  The  likeness  would  be 
more  accurate  if  you  could  suppose  the  parliamentary  was 
permanently  brought  to  a  stand,  that  train  after  train,  casting 
upon  it  a  pitying  glance,  hurried  forward  triumphantly  to  a 
prosperous  journey's  end.  If  I  had  entered  the  army  I  might 
have  had  a  chance  of  being  immortalized  by  Mr.  Kinglake. 
If  I  had  joined  the  bar,  I  might  have  done  as  well  as  those 
of  my  contemporaries  who  have  succeeded  remarkably  well. 
If  I  had  pushed  my  way  in  polities  and  literature,  I  might 
have  attained  to  some  amount  of  income  and  some  amount 
of  distinction.  But  I  took  orders.  I  came  down  to  the  north 
of  England,  among  a  large  and  ignorant  population.  I  am 
afraid  I  was  not  best  suited  to  them.  I  could  only  handle  a 
delicate  penknife,  whereas  they  required  a  second  Whitefield, 
who  could  wield  a  theological  battle-axe.  Still,  what  work 
there  was  to  be  done,  I  honestly  tried  to  do.  I  am  afraid  that 
my  preaching,  then  and  still,  was,  to  a  high  degree,  inoperative. 
y^  physique  is  poor  and  my  voice  thin.  I  am  a  slave  to  my 
manuscript,  and  in  writing  my  manuscript  I  am  a  slave  to  my 
education.  I  have  not  that  practical  ability  which  would  en- 
able me  to  become  every  thing  that  I  ought  to  my  lowly  con- 
gregation. I  constantly  find  myself  adopting  lines  of  thought 
and  falling  into  modes  of  expression  unsuited  to  my  people. 
I  consider  this  an  error  of  a  very  grave  kind;  and,  please 
God,  I  will  yet  work  myself  free  from  it.  Still  I  have  done  or 
striven  to  do  all  that  I  could,  and  much  that  was  originally 
against  the  grain.  I  attend  my  schools  regularly ;  I  visit  my 
sick  assiduously.  Mine  is  not  a  model  parish,  and  I  have  no 
showy,  magnificent  results ;  but  when  I  go  among  the  sick, 


124  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

the  poverty-stricken,  and  the  aged,  I  find,  with  a  secret  joy 
which  I  would  not  exchange  for  a  mitre,  that  my  instructions 
and  consolations  have  not  been  ineffectual. 

"  The  population  of  my  first  parish  was  about  sixteen  thou- 
sand souls.  The  press  of  work  was  enormous,  and  it  was 
work  which  an  earnest  man  might  multiply  indefinitely,  even 
to  a  destroying  extent.  First  of  all,  the  lighter  accomplish- 
ments of  life  had  fled — my  music  and  my  love  of  sketching 
scenery.  Secondly,  my  correspondence  with  lettered  and  in- 
fluential friends  ceased,  friends  by  whose  means  I  might  have 
hoped  to  have  gained  some  elevation  in  the  world.  Thirdly, 
I  was  obliged  to  terminate  my  historical  and  general  studies  ; 
I  strove  hard  to  retain  them,  giving  up  the  scanty  hours  which 
after  severe  labor  would  fittingly  have  been  devoted  to  relaxa- 
tion. I  finally  sacrificed  even  these,  confining  myself  strictly 
to  the  literature  of  my  profession.  I  think  I  was  mistaken  in 
this,  and  of  late  years  I  have  endeavored  to  retrace  my  steps. 
All  phases  of  that  active  thought  which  characterizes  our 
modern  days  ought  to  be  familiar  to  that  servant  of  God  who 
desires  fully  to  do  his  Master's  work  in  his  generation.  For 
some  time  I  let  this  go,  for  the  less  important  of  important 
things  must  at  times  be  sacrificed.  Consider,  my  friend,  that 
my  tired,  thin  hand  had  to  write  every  word  of  the  two  ser- 
mons which  I  prepared  weekly  for  my  people.  You  may  well 
believe  that  in  such  a  population  a  large  amount  of  active 
visitation  was  required  ;  however,  there  were  schools  and 
other  parish  machinery  to  be  diligently  worked.  I  wondered 
at  the  days  in  which  I  found  time  hang  heavy  on  my  hands, 
and  at  those  who  repeat  such  language.  Were  the  days  thirty 
hours  long,  and  our  faculties  could  cope  with  such  an  exten- 
sion, it  would  be  little  enough  for  the  work  which  the  hand 
can  find  to  do.  After  serving  as  an  obscure  and  hard-working 
curate  for  a  number  of  years,  the  largest  and  poorest  part  of 


TAKING  HOLY  ORDERS. 


'25 


the  parish  was  marked  off  as  a  separate  district  under  Sir 
Robert  Peel's  Act.  The  bishop  himself  offered  me  the  ap- 
pointment, which  I  at  once  accepted.  In  a  worldly  point  of 
view  I  perhaps  scarcely  did  well  to  do  so.  Service  was  at 
first  celebrated  in  a  licensed  school-room,  and  it  was  with  in- 
finite difficulty  that  a  church  was  finally  built.  Since  then  a 
parsonage-house  has  been  erected.  If  my  narrative  is  not  an 
encouraging  one,  multitudes  of  my  brethren  would  furnish  you 
with  one  still  less  so.  Multitudes  do  not  attain  even  the 
scanty  preferment  which  I  have  obtained,  for  I  assure  you 
that  my  net  income  is  a  hundred  and  sixty  pounds  a  year. 

"  Perhaps,  with  the  hopes  natural  to  a  young  man  just  about 
to  enter  a  great  profession,  you  indulge  yourself  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent picture.  Some  West  End  church  rises  perchance  before 
your  view,  with  much  architectural  beauty,  with  an  eminently 
pleasing  ritual,  and  thronged  with  cultured,  intelligent  and  ap- 
proving listeners.  Perhaps  you  will  wed  a  pretty,  clever,  and 
well-dowered  wife ;  perhaps  some  lordly  pew-holder  will  give 
you  a  living.  We  have  all  heard  of  such  cases.  It  may  prob- 
ably be  yours.  Still  more  probably  it  may  not.  If  such  a  lot 
would  really  be  the  best  for  you,  I  wish  it  for  you  with  all  my 
soul.  But  such  a  position  is  perhaps  not  the  most  useful  in 
the  Church,  nor  yet  the  most  useful  to  a  man's  own  self.  I 
am  clear  that  no  man  has  a  right  to  enter  the  ministry  reckon- 
ing on  such.  You  must  consider  that  you  are  launching  on  a 
wide  sea,  and  sailing  under  sealed  orders.  Those  orders, 
which  are  to  settle  your  destination,  are  at  the  time  of  sailing 
quite  unknown  to  you.  You  must  enter  your  profession  ready 
to  do  your  work  wherever  your  work  is  found  for  you. 

"  Now,  my  dear  friend,  are  you  prepared  for  all  this  ?  Chief- 
ly, in  the  language  of  our  prayer-book,  do  you  trust  that  you 
are  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  undertake  this  ministry  ?  I 
do  not  mean  by  this  to  ask  you  whether  you  think  you  have 


126  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

any  afflatus  or  special  mission  or  supernatural  call.  This 
grave  question  is  not  to  be  settled  by  any  mere  emotionalism. 
If  you  have  prepared  yourself  for  hard  work  and  possible  sac- 
rifice ;  if  you  feel  that  your  education  and  past  life  may  most 
fittingly  be  subordinated  to  this  purpose  ;  if  the  hand  of  Provi- 
dence and  the  course  of  events  guide  you  to  this  path ;  if  you 
deliberately  think  that  in  this  way  your  life  may  be  most  hap- 
pily and  beneficially  spent ;  if  you  have  made  this  a  matter 
of  earnest  prayer  to  God,  and  confided  it  in  humble  faith  to 
him ;  if,  in  proportion  as  you  incline  to  the  affirmative,  you 
find  your  mind  calm,  settled,  and  resolved,  and  so  far  as  you 
decline,  restless  and  dissatisfied ;  then,  in  my  judgment,  the 
judgment  of  a  weak,  erring  man  howbeit,  your  path  to  the  min- 
istry seems  clear,  and  I  pray  God  to  guide  you  into  it,  and  to 
bless  you  in  it. 

"  I  could  add  much  more  in  the  way  of  setting  before  you 
the  drawbacks  and  discomforts  which  attend  a  curate's  life. 
But  not  willingly  would  I  disparage  that  blessed  and  sacred 
service  in  which  I  am  engaged.  Rather  let  me  remind  my- 
self that  there  are  some  favorable  points  which  I  ought  lastly 
to  set  before  you.  Remember  that  your  ministerial  work 
tends  immediately  and  directly  to  your  own  good.  The  ser- 
mons you  address  to  others  you  preach  first  of  all  to  your  own 
self.  The  warnings  and  consolations  you  address  to  others 
are,  chief  of  all,  warnings  and  consolations  to  yourself.  You 
may  pretty  well  choose  your  own  times  and  occasions  for 
working,  and  are  in  some  measure  released  from  the  ordinary 
shackles  that  bind  ordinary  men.  Your  studies  are  those 
which  in  the  highest  degree  benefit  and  interest  the  intellect 
and  the  spirit.  Neither  should  I  omit  to  mention  the  positive 
worldly  advantages  which  accrue  to  you.  You  have  an  income 
assured  to  you,  small  indeed,  but  not  smaller  than  is  gained 
by  the  commencing  barrister  and  physician.  You  have  a 


TAKING   HOLY  ORDERS. 


127 


status  in  society  which,  if  not  valued  by  the  mammon-hunt- 
ers, is  yet  recognized  and  honored  by  the  better  portion  of 
the  community.  If  the  income  is  narrow,  it  is  quite  possible 
and  quite  allowable  that  you  should  add  to  it  by  pupils  or  lit- 
erature. If  a  Paul  worked  with  his  hands  to  give  himself  a 
subsistence,  assuredly  you  may  resort  to  similar  avocations  in 
order  that  you  may  provide  things  honest,  and  be  able  to  give 
to  him  that  needeth.  But  in  the  hands  of  an  earnest  man  lit- 
erature and  education  cease  to  be  secular. 

"  Adieu,  my  friend,  and  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word  it  is 
indeed  a  Dieu.  I  do  indeed  commend  you  to  him.  May  he 
guide  and  direct  you !  I  have  written  you  a  long  letter,  I 
find.  The  Saturday  Review,  says  that  people  no  longer  send 
letters ;  they  only  send  messages.  I  am  at  least  an  excep- 
tional instance.  But  I  should  infinitely  prefer  to  talk  matters 
over  with  you.  Can  not  you  come  down  this  spring  ?  Even 
in  this  manufacturing  part  of  the  world  spring  looks  beautiful. 
Stray  violets  and  primroses  are  found  in  haggard  localities 
where  you  would  hardly  look  for  them.  Streams  veiled  by  the 
factory  smoke,  and  where  the  poisoned  fishes  die,  grow  limpid 
as  you  trace  them  to  their  source,  and  you  get  those  glimpses 
of  pastoral  beauties  which  delighted  the  tourists  before  money- 
making  drove  them  away.  You  will  be  delighted  with  my  cu- 
rate, for  the  Additional  Curates'  Aid  Society  gives  me  one. 
He  is  fresh  from  his  Greek,  and  also  full  of  zeal  for  his  work. 

"  Ever  affectionately  yours,  C.  E.  L." 


128  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Marriage. 

I  DO  not  see  why  I  should  not  include  marriage  among  the 
turning-points  of  life,  as,  indeed,  it  is  one  of  the  most  import- 
ant of  all.  I  am  afraid,  perhaps,  that  I  am  encroaching  upon 
the  domains  of  the  novelists,  who  have  appropriated  this  lit- 
erary region  very  much  to  themselves.  Perhaps  young  peo- 
ple, too,  would  hardly  care  to  listen  to  any  matter-of-fact  dis- 
cussion on  concerns  where  they  arrogate  to  themselves  the 
right  of  doing  pretty  well  as  they  please.  But  the  subject 
naturally  belongs  to  my  programme,  and  I  proceed  to  discuss 
it.  I  really  think,  too,  that  it  is  a  matter  that  eminently  re- 
quires discussion.  It  is  lamentable  to  see  how  many  boys 
and  girls  become  engaged  and  marry  without  any  serious 
thought;  how  silly  people  will  only  treat  the  subject  with 
smiles  and  giggles,  and  how  fathers  and  mothers  avoid  giving 
counsel  and  advice  to  their  children  on  such  matters. 

It  was  the  well-known  remark  of  some  celebrated  man  that, 
if  marriages  were  simply  ordered  and  adjusted  by  judicial  au- 
thority, they  would  prove  just  as  happy  as  they  are  now.  I 
read  the  other  day,  in  "  A  Clergyman's  Diary  of  the  Seven- 
teenth Century,"  reprinted  by  an  archaeological  society,  a  very 
sensible  letter  from  the  rector  of  a  parish,  who  makes  a  due 
offer  of  his  niece  in  marriage  to  the  son  of  a  neighboring  cler- 
gyman, and  doubts  not  but  the  young  girl  will  prove  obedient 
to  his  wishes.  Something,  perhaps,  is  to  be  said  in  favor  of 
such  a  scheme.  There  are  certainly  some  people  in  the  world 


MARRIAGE. 


129 


who  can  not  be  trusted  to  make  marriages  for  themselves,  and 
for  them  it  is  perhaps  quite  as  well  that  such  things  should  be 
settled  for  them. 

As  an  example  of  this  plan,  which  Dr.  Johnson  recommend- 
ed, we  take  good  Bishop  Hall's  experience  when  he  was  set- 
tled "  in  the  sweet  and  civil  county  of  Suffolk :" 

"  The  uncouth  solitariness  of  my  life,  and  the  extreme  in- 
commodity  of  my  single  housekeeping,  drew  my  thoughts  aft- 
er two  years  to  condescend  to  the  necessity  of  the  married 
state,  which  God  no  less  strangely  provided  for  me  ;  for,  walk- 
ing from  the  church  on  Monday  in  the  Whitsun  week  with  a 
grave  and  reverend  minister,  Mr.  Grandidge,  I  saw  a  comely 
and  modest  gentlewoman  standing  at  the  door  of  that  house 
where  we  were  invited  to  a  wedding-dinner,  and  inquiring  of 
that  worthy  friend  whether  he  knew  her, '  Yes,'  quoth  he, '  I 
know  her  well,  and  have  bespoken  her  for  your  wife.'  When 
I  further  demanded  an  account  of  that  answer,  he  told  me  she 
was  the  daughter  of  a  gentleman  whom  he  much  respected, 
Mr.  George  Winniffe,  of  Bretenham  ;  that,  out  of  an  opinion 
had  of  the  fitness  of  that  match  for  me,  he  had  already  treated 
with  her  father  of  it,  whom  he  found  very  apt  to  entertain  it, 
advising  me  not  to  neglect  the  opportunity,  and  not  conceal- 
ing the  just  praises  of  the  modesty,  piety,  and  good  disposition 
and  other  virtues  that  were  lodged  in  that  seemly  presence. 
I  listened  to  the  motion  as  sent  from  God ;  and  at  last,  upon 
due  prosecution,  happily  prevailed,  enjoying  the  company  of 
that  helpmeet  for  the  space  of  forty-nine  years." 

Schlegel,  in  his  "Philosophy  of  Life,"  has  some  fertile 
thoughts  on  the  subject : 

"  Lastly,  we  will  now  consider  that  other  instinct  in  our  na-^ 
ture,  which,  even  as  the  strongest,  most  requires  moral  regu- 
lation and  treatment.  By  all  noble  natures  among  civilized 
nations  in  their  best  and  purest  times,  this  instinct  has,  by 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


means  of  various  moral  relations,  been  spontaneously  associ- 
ated with  a  higher  element.  And  indeed,  taken  simply  as  in- 
clination, it  possesses  some  degree  of  affinity  therewith.  Such 
a  strong  inclination  and  hearty  love,  elevated  to  the  bonds  of 
fidelity,  receives  thereby  a  solemn  consecration,  and  is  even 
by  the  divine  dispensation  regarded  as  a  sanctuary.  And  it 
is  in  truth  the  moral  sanctuary  of  earthly  existence,  on  which 
God's  first  and  earliest  blessing  still  rests.  It  is,  moreover, 
the  foundation  on  which  is  built  the  happiness  and  the  moral 
welfare  of  races  and  nations.  This  soul-connecting  link  of 
love,  which  constitutes  the  family  union,  is  the  source  from 
which  emanate  the  strong  and  beautiful  ties  of  a  mother's  love, 
of  filial  duty,  and  of  fraternal  affection  between  brethren  and 
kindred,  which  together  make  up  the  invisible  soul,  and,  as  it 
were,  the  inner  vital  fluid  of  the  nerves  of  human  society. 
And  here,  too,  the  great  family  problem  of  education  must  be 
taken  into  account,  and  by  education  I  mean  the  whole  moral 
training  of  the  rising  generation. 

"For  however  numerous  and  excellent  maybe  the  institu- 
tions founded  by  the  state  o1  conducted  by  private  individu- 
als, for  special  branches  and  objects,  or  for  particular  classes 
and  ages,  still,  on  the  whole,  education  must  be  regarded  as 
pre-eminently  the  business  and  duty  of  the  family.  For  it  is 
in  the  family  that  education  commences,  and  there  also  it 
terminates  and  concludes  at  the  moment  when  the  young 
man,  mature  of  mind  and  years,  and  the  grown-up  maiden, 
leave  the  paternal  roof  to  found  a  new  family  of  their  own. 
In  seasons  of  danger,  and  of  wide-spread  and  stalking  corrup- 
tion, men  are  wont  to  feel — but  often,  alas  !  too  late — how  en- 
tirely the  whole  frame  both  of  human  and  political  society 
rests  on  this  foundation  of  the  family  union.  Not  merely  by 
the  phenomena  of  our  own  times,  but  by  the  examples  of  the 
most  civilized  nations  of  antiquity  may  this  truth  be  historic- 


MARRIAGE. 


ally  proved,  and  numerous  passages  can  be  adduced  from 
their  great  historians  in  confirmation  of  it.  In  all  times,  and 
in  all  places,  a  moral  revolution  within  the  domestic  circle 
has  preceded  the  public  outbreaks  of  general  anarchy,  which 
have  thrown  whole  nations  into  confusion,  and  undermined 
the  best-ordered  and  wisely  constituted  states.  When  all  the 
principal  joists  of  a  building  have  started,  and  all  its  stays 
and  fastenings,  from  the  roof  to  the  foundation,  have  become 
loose,  then  will  the  first  storm  of  accident  easily  demolish  the 
whole  structure,  or  the  first  spark  set  the  dry  and  rotten  edi- 
fice in  flames." 

The  world  in  general  looks  simply  to  the  question  of  the 
prudence  or  improvidence  of  marriage,  and  whether  the  young 
people  can  afford  to  marry.  Some  time  ago  there  was  a  very 
hot  discussion  on  the  three-hundred-a-year  question,  and  lately 
a  London  firm  has  given  notice  to  its  employe's  that  any  clerk 
marrying  on  a  less  salary  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a 
year  thereby  loses  his  situation.  It  may  be  questioned  wheth- 
er such  a  rule  is  not  arbitrary  and  unjust,  possibly  illegal. 
Our  law  rightly  condemns  any  thing  that  acts  in  restraint  of 
marriage.  We  may  see  in  France  the  full  effect  of  subordi- 
nating marriage  and  offspring  to  mere  considerations  of  con- 
venience. The  population  is  a  stationary  population.  It 
either  increases  very  slightly  or  slightly  falls  back.  The  mor- 
al life  of  the  nation  has  been  seriously  affected  by  its  theory 
of  marriage.  When  the  war  of  1870  broke  out,  France  and 
Germany  were  almost  exactly  balanced  in  population.  After 
the  lapse  of  a  certain  number  of  years,  according  to  ordinary 
calculations,  the  population  of  Germany  will  be  double  that 
of  France.  It  is  not  the  policy  of  any  state  to  restrict  mar- 
riage, nor  yet  of  any  society  to  tacitly  prohibit  it.  But  young 
men  who  marry  without  adequate  means  should  have  the  prob- 
able facts  of  future  life  put  very  strongly  before  them.  To 


132  TURNING-POINTS   IN  LIFE. 

such  a  one  his  nearest  friend  would  have  a  right  to  say,  "If 
you  declare  that  you  really  wish  to  get  married  on  the  broad 
ground  that  you  are  a  man,  and  that  your  rights  as  a  man 
underlie  the  rights  of  society,  and  that  you  have  succeeded 
in  bringing  about  that  view  of  the  case  in  the  mind  of  anoth- 
er, I  will  not  dispute  your  right  to  do  so.  But  you  can  not 
play  fast  and  loose  with  society.  You  can  not  say  that  you 
will  not  think  of  society  when  you  marry  without  an  adequate 
income,  and  yet,  when  you  marry,  fall  into  all  kinds  of  diffi- 
culties, because  your  income  is  insufficient.  If  you  are  pre- 
pared to  live  very  plainly,  to  forego  luxuries,  to  do  without 
servants,  to  work  hard  and  unremittingly,  to  abandon  the  in- 
terchange of  social  civilities,  to  emigrate,  if  need  be,  to  the 
backwoods  of  Canada,  to  face  manfully  every  unknown  chance 
of  hard  life  which  an  impecunious  marriage  may  bring  with 
it,  then  I  think  that  you  have  a  fair  right  to  marry,  but  re- 
member what  is  written  in  the  bond."  I  am  bound  to  say 
that  when  people  have  taken  this  clear,  sensible  view  of  the 
subject,  and  have  acted  accordingly,  although  they  may  have 
very  hard  lives  at  first,  yet,  in  the  long  run,  they  make  up  for 
an  unfavorable  start,  and  do  just  as  well,  or  perhaps  a  little 
better,  than  others. 

But  the  material  view  of  marriage  is  altogether  inferior  to 
the  moral  view.  Where  the  unhappiness  of  married  life  is 
in  one  instance  due  to  limited  means,  in  a  dozen  instances  it 
is  due  to  other  causes.  English  people  in  general  exaggerate 
the  money  difficulty,  and  underrate  the  moral  difficulty.  The 
great  consideration  which  a  man  has  to  face  is  not  whether 
his  choice  will  bring  poverty,  but  whether  it  has  been  a  right 
choice  at  all.  Happiness  in  married  life  is  not  very  much  af- 
fected by  outward  circumstances.  Charles  Dickens,  in  his 
"  David  Copperfield,"  dwells  on  the  fact  that  "  there  is  no  in- 
compatibility like  that  of  mind  and  purpose."  This  is  a  sub- 


MARRIAGE. 


ject  on  which  the  New  Testament  speaks  very  plainly. 
"  How  can  two  walk  together  unless  they  are  agreed  ?"  St. 
Paul  asks  how  the  wife  can  have  any  security  that  she  will 
save  her  husband,  or  how  the  husband  can  have  any  security 
that  he  will  save  his  wife.  As  the  passage  stands  in  our  En- 
glish version,  Cor.  vii.  16,  it  is  probably  a  mistranslation,  the 
real  paraphrase  being,  "  Do  not  insist  on  a  reluctant  union ; 
for  thou  knowest  not  whether  there  is  such  a  prospect  of  con- 
verting thy  heathen  partner  as  to  make  such  a  union  desira- 
ble." The  Church  has  generally  taken  the  passage  in  the  re- 
ceived sense :  "  and  it  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say,"  says 
Dean  Stanley,  "  that  this  passage  thus  interpreted  had  a  direct 
influence  on  the  marriage  of  Clotilda  with  Clovis,  and  Bertha 
with  Ethelbert,  and  consequently  on  the  subsequent  conver- 
sion of  the  two  great  kingdoms  of  England  and  France  to  the 
Christian  faith.  Hence  although  this  particular  interpreta- 
tion is  erroneous,  and  may  well  give  way  to  that  which  turns 
it  into  a  solemn  warning  against  the  gambling  spirit  which  in- 
trudes itself  even  into  the  most  solemn  matters,  yet  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  old  interpretation  is  founded  is  sufficiently 
expressed  in  the  fourteenth  verse,  which  distinctly  lays  down 
the  rule  that  domestic  union  can  reconcile  the  greatest  differ- 
ences of  religious  belief." 

An  immense  amount  of  unhappiness  is  found  in  married 
life.  No  religious  person  can  have  any  true  basis  of  happi- 
ness unless  the  partner  is  religious.  There  may  be  the 
deepest  happiness  between  married  people  whose  lives  beat 
harmoniously  to  the  impulse  of  the  same  great  principles.  I 
believe  also  that  there  may  be  a  great  amount  of  happiness 
between  people  who  are  not,  as  are  called,  believers,  when 
their  minds  and  tastes  are  in  harmony,  and  they  belong  to 
the  same  order  of  life.  Unequal  marriages  are  almost  uni- 
formly unhappy.  For  a  religious  person  to  be  yoked  with 


134 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


one  who  is  decidedly  irreligious  can  only  be  provocative  of 
the  keenest  misery. 

It  is  misery  for  which  there  is  not  the  slightest  palliation, 
especially  for  the  woman.  When  we  hear  of  trouble  and  un- 
happiness  in  married  life,  the  usual  thing  said  is  that  there 
are  faults  on  both  sides.  Both  being  human,  that  can  be  well 
believed.  But  in  looking  closely  at  the  history  of  such  cases 
we  can  generally  see  that  the  fault  lies  originally  or  princi- 
pally in  one  direction  or  another.  Self-will,  self-indulgence, 
the  despising  of  knowledge  and  reproof,  often  make  up  the 
unamiable  and  unchristian  character  that  is  incompatible  with 
happiness. 

I  remember  very  well  a  poor  man  coming  to  me  one  day  to 
give  me  a  recital  of  his  sorrows,  and  to  ask  my  advice.  It  was 
a  sad  business.  He  had  been  married  many  years,  and  his 
married  life  was  that  of  chronic  misery.  He  was  in  a  very 
bad  state  of  health,  and  I  have  no  doubt  but  mental  misery 
had  conduced  to  it.  His  wife  had  been  an  evil  angel  to  him. 
She  had  neglected  him  in  his  illness,  she  had  encouraged  her 
children  in  bad  ways,  she  had  poisoned  their  minds  against 
him,  had  run  up  bills,  had  got  drunk,  had  ruined  his  good 
name  and  his  business,  had  committed  every  iniquity  except 
that  last  injury  which  would  give  him  a  legal  title  to  redress. 
He  came  to  ask  me  whether  he  was  not  justified  in  separating 
from  her,  and  taking  lodgings  apart  by  himself.  It  was  not  a 
question  that  I  liked  to  have  put  to  me,  and  I  hardly  knew 
how  to  answer  or  refrain  from  answering.  If  the  woman 
would  only  leave  him  instead  of  his  leaving  the  woman,  the 
matter  would  be  easy.  St.  Paul  says  that  a  brother  or  sister 
is  not  in  bondage  in  such  cases,  and  John  Wesley  has  given 
us  a  famous  precedent,  non  dimisi,  non  revocabo.  At  last  I 
thought  I  saw  my  way.  If  his  health  really  required,  say  for 
the  sake  of  quiet  and  good  nursing,  that  he  should  leave  his 


MARRIAGE.  135 


wife,  I  thought  that  he  would  be  justified  in  so  doing.  But  I 
told  him  that  he  must  be  very  careful  not  to  leave  his  wife 
simply  through  any  want  of  good  temper  or  forbearance  on 
his  part,  and  that  he  should  examine  himself  very  carefully 
whether  his  own  conduct  might  not  give  her  very  just  grounds 
of  offense.  From  all  that  I  had  been  able  to  learn  of  the 
history  of  the  case,  the  rights  of  this  question  lay  entirely  on 
the  side  of  the  husband.  I  comforted  the  poor  man  as  well 
as  I  might,  and  he  went  back  to  his  home.  He  never  left  his 
bad  wife,  however.  He  was  too  ill  to  bear  any  removal.  He 
languished  day  by  day ;  his  evil  angel  remaining  in  the  poor 
house  they  had,  and  few  could  have  divined  that  life-to-death 
antagonism  between  them.  He  died  of  consumption.  Death 
was  the  only  physician  for  his  disease — according  to  the  old 
Greek  proverb,  /^ovoe  tarpog  QavaroQ.  That  "happy  issue  out 
of  all  their  afflictions,"  of  which  the  Church  prayer  speaks,  as 
a  rule,  simply  means  death. 

It  is  this — the  irrevocable  nature  of  the  marriage  tie,  the 
consciousness  that  nothing  but  death,  which  it  were  almost 
murder  to  wish  for,  or  sin  that  is  worse  than  death,  can  dis- 
solve that  tie — which,  far  more  than  any  pecuniary  considera1- 
tions,  should  make  men  pause  long  and  considerately  before 
they  marry.  The  whole  shape  and  color  of  life  are  determined 
by  this  transaction.  They  surround  a  man  with  a  network  of 
circumstances  which  subjugates  him,  unless  in  the  case  of  a 
lofty  ideal  or  a  determined  character.  Jeremy  Taylor's  fa- 
mous apologue  will  be  remembered :  "  The  stags  in  the  Greek 
epigram,  whose  knees  were  clogged  with  frozen  snow  upon  the 
mountains,  came  down  to  the  brooks  of  the  valleys,  hoping  to 
thaw  their  joints  with  the  waters  of  the  stream  ;  but  there  the 
frost  overtook  them,  and  bound  them  fast  in  ice,  till  the  young 
herdsmen  took  them  in  their  strange  snare.  It  is  the  unhappy 
chance  of  men,  finding  many  inconveniences  on  the  mountains 


!36  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

of  single  life,  they  descend  into  the  valleys  of  marriage  to  re- 
fresh their  troubles  ;  and  there  they  enter  into  fetters,  and  are 
bound  to  sorrow  by  the  cords  of  a  man's  or  a  woman's  pee- 
vishness." Surely  a  smile  must  have  passed  over  the  lips  of 
some  of  his  hearers  as  they  listened  to  this  quaint  imagery. 
A  still  more  ungallant  simile  may  be  found.  There  was  a 
saintly  bishop  who  in  one  of  his  sermons  likened  matrimony 
to  a  man  putting  his  hand  into  a  bag  of  serpents,  in  the  hope 
that  he  might  draw  out  an  eel.  That  was  certainly  a  very  un- 
pleasing  similitude.  It  is  most  probable  that  the  ladies  might 
be  able  to  put  matters  in  a  juster  and  more  impartial  light. 
There  are  several  historical  characters  who  are  supposed  to 
have  their  matrimonial  wrongs  strongly  established.  Such 
was  Job  with  his  wife,  and  Socrates  with  his  Xanthippe,  and 
Richard  Hooker  rocking  the  cradle,  and  John  Wesley  having 
his  whiskers  pulled.  Leaving  the  ancient  precedents  alone, 
I  am  of  opinion  that  Mrs.  Richard  Hooker  and  Mrs.  John 
Wesley  might  still  have  a  strong  case  of  their  own  to  put. 
But  whichever  side  we  adopt  in  such  quarrels,  the  fact  of  the 
intense  unhappiness  of  the  internecine  quarrel  of  a  lifetime 
can  not  be  exaggerated.  Hooker  might  still  write  his  books, 
or  Wesley  preach  his  sermons,  but  for  most  men  the  useful- 
ness as  well  as  the  happiness  of  life  might  be  irretrievably 
marred. 

Isaak  Walton,  after  his  quaint  fashion,  finds  a  consolation 
for  his  "  good  Richard"  in  the  thought  that  "  affliction  is  a 
divine  diet."  That  may  be  so,  but  still  the  carnal  mind  will 
feel  that  it  is  not  a  diet  to  which  it  takes  naturally.  Such  diet 
becomes  still  more  unpalatable  when  it  is  considered  that  it 
comes  not  in  any  ordinary  course  of  God's  providence,  but 
simply  in  consequence  of  stupidity  or  self-will.  It  is  quite 
true  that  even  such  untoward  events  may  be  graciously  over- 
ruled to  work  out  good;  much  good  that  is  plainly  visible, 


MARRIAGE. 


137 


much  good  that  may  be  dimly  surmised  or  hoped  for.  Still, 
though  much  good  may  be  attained,  it  is  possible  and  likely 
that  a  still  higher  good  may  be  lost ;  and  it  is  a  sad  and  sorrow- 
ful thing  when  a  man  or  woman  is  forced  to  confess  that  the 
best  good  of  earth  has  been  recklessly  thrown  away,  and  that 
the  only  hopes  of  happiness  must  be  placed  beyond  the  grave. 
Neither,  on  the  simply  prudential  grounds,  is  the  pecuniary 
question  the  one  that  is  really  fundamental.  The  question  of 
health  and  constitution  is  deeply  important.  A  little  conver- 
sation with  the  officers  of  an  insurance  company  would  be 
highly  beneficial  to  many  people  who  are  rushing  into  matri- 
mony without  a  thought  of  consequences.  It  is  important  to 
know  that  there  is  no  constitutional  taint;  and  even  when 
such  a  taint  has  been  very  slight,  right-minded  persons  have 
thought  it  best  to  abstain  from  marriage.  No  man  has  a  right 
to  bring  children  into  the  world  condemned  to  a  life  of  disease 
and  a  premature  death.  Moreover,  the  question  of  family  and 
connections  are,  I  will  not  say  overpowering  considerations  to 
determine  the  character  of  a  marriage,  but  still  matters  of  a 
deep  importance.  A  just-minded  man  will  be  careful  of  the 
interests  of  his  children  yet  unborn.  For  the  same  reason  a 
man  ought  to  be  very  careful  what  kind  of  mother  he  is  about 
to  give  his  children.  The  nature  of  their  family  connection 
will  be  of  the  highest  importance  to  the  children  of  a  marriage. 
Is  she  one  likely  to  pray  for  them,  to  instruct  them,  to  give 
them  generous  and  liberal  ideas,  to  give  them  the  training  that 
shall  be  elevated,  graceful,  and  religious,  to  make  them  regard 
their  parents  with  intensest  love  and  gratitude?  Then  the 
family  history  of  an  individual  is  worthy  of  the  deepest  atten- 
tion. It  is  a  common  saying,  involving  a  very  large  amount 
of  truth,  that  it  takes  three  generations  to  make  a  gentleman. 
The  people  who  know  how  to  make  money,  and  the  people 
who  know  how  to  spend  money,  are  very  different  kind  of 


138 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


people.  A  turbid  stream  may  run  refined  in  time,  but  we  do 
not  care  for  it  much  during  the  clearing  process.  It  is  re- 
markable how  both  bodily  and  mental  peculiarities  are  trans- 
mitted. You  may  look  at  this  matter  either  in  a  philosophical 
point  of  view  or  in  a  practical  point  of  view.  Mr.  Darwin  will 
instruct  you  in  the  first,  and  George  Eliot  in  the  second ;  but, 
in  fact,  each  style  flows  into  the  other.  One  or  two  curious 
points  may  be  said  to  have  occurred  in  relation  to  marriage, 
or  rather  to  non-marriage.  It  belongs  to  that  subject  of  the 
relations  between  the  sexes  on  which  it  is  difficult  to  touch, 
but  which  one  hardly  acts  wisely  in  leaving  untouched.  As  a 
rule,  whenever  we  see  some  very  sensational  case  in  the  news- 
papers, involving  some  atrocious  cruelty  or  murder,  we  may 
be  quite  sure  that  immorality  lies  at  the  root  of  the  matter. 
There  is  a  family  relationship  among  all  the  vices,  and  it 
would  really  appear  that  cruelty  and  lust  are  especially  con- 
nected. Again  and  again,  in  those  hideous  criminal  reports 
that  reflect  the  ugly  side  of  our  boasted  modern  civilization,  we 
see  how  sensuality  has  paved  the  way  for  the  abyss  of  crime. 
It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  that  the  victim  of  one  passion 
becomes  slain  by  another,  and  the  awful  amount  of  infanti- 
cide in  England  shows  how  unhallowed  feelings  easily  lend 
themselves  to  the  most  cruel  and  unnatural  crimes.  It  is  in- 
finitely better  that  a  man  should  marry,  even  if  he  has  to  face 
hard  labor  and  many  deprivations,  rather  than  add  to  the  sum 
of  misery  that  saddens  and  pollutes  modern  life.  A  very  re- 
markable instance  is  that  of  Rush  the  murderer,  in  the  noto- 
rious Jermyn  case.  The  murderer  was  convicted  chiefly  on 
the  testimony  of  a  woman  named  Emily  Sandford,  who  had 
consented  to  live  with  him  under  the  most  solemn  promise  of 
marriage.  In  passing  sentence  upon  the  murderer,  Lord 
Cranworth,  then  Baron  Rolfe,  reminded  the  wretched  man 
that  the  policy  of  the  law  closed  a  wife's  lips  against  her  hus- 


MARRIAGE. 


'39 


band,  and  that  if  he  had  kept  his  solemn  promise  he  would 
probably  not  have  been  convicted,  in  default  of  her  testimony. 
We  are  sorry,  even  for  a  moment,  to  couple  the  illustrious 
name  of  Gothe  with  the  obscure  English  murderer.  But  even 
Gothe  may  supply  us  with  a  moral.  The  biographers  of  Gothe 
generally  follow  his  career  by  tracking  him  from  one  love  af- 
fair to  another.  In  these  matters  he  appears  to  have  been  a 
little  heartless,  or  what  modern  society  would  consider  rascally. 
"  She  is  perfect,"  he  says  of  his  Katchen,  "  and  her  only  fault 
is  that  she  loves  me."  As  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes  says,  "He  teased 
her  with  trifles  and  idle  suspicions ;  was  jealous  without  cause, 
convinced  without  reason ;  plagued  her  with  fantastic  quarrels, 
till  at  last  her  endurance  was  exhausted,  and  her  love  was 
washed  away  in  tears."  Mr.  Lewes  eloquently  pleads  for  his 
great  favorite.  He  ingeniously  says:  "Genius  has  an  orbit  of 
its  own.  Its  orbit  is  not  necessarily  eccentric,  although  it 
must  often  appear  so,  because  its  sweep  is  wide.  Sometimes 
it  disregards  domestic  duties  and  minor  morals  in  obeying  the 
law  of  its  own  movement.  Hence  genius  and  morality  are  not 
always  synonymous."  The  special  pleading  of  the  philosopher 
is  certainly  amusing.  Gothe  missed  infinitely  much,  and  per- 
haps marred  the  perfection  of  his  genius  by  his  unmanliness. 
The  ties  which  he  refused  to  form  in  manhood  with  the  high- 
souled  Frederika,  in  advanced  life  he  formed  with  an  ignorant 
and  intemperate  person.  We  are  told  of  the  "turning-point" 
of  marriage  in  Gothe's  case.  One  morning  he  was  accosted 
in  the  park  of  Weimar  by  a  young,  bright-eyed  girl,  who,  with 
many  reverences,  presented  a  petition  to  him.  He  fell  in  love 
with  her,  but  with  characteristic  selfishness  he  dreaded  mar- 
riage. He  took  her  to  his  house,  he  himself  regarding  this 
as  a  kind  of  morganatic  marriage,  but  the  world  at  large  as 
a  scandalous  liaison.  Many  years  afterward,  when  he  was 
not  far  from  sixty,  he  formally  married.  He  lived  with  her 


140 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


twenty-eight  years,  and  he  keenly  regretted  her  loss.  He 
would  have  been  happier  and  better  if  he  had  married  her  at 
once ;  happier  still  if  he  had  been  true  to  Christine.  Most 
men  of  the  world  are  acquainted  with  various  instances  in 
which  selfish  men  have  placed  weakr  loving  women  in  a  posi- 
tion unutterably  false  and  debasing  for  many  years,  and  have 
tardily  found  it  best  to  enter  into  the  union  which  years  before 
it  would  have  been  for  their  interest  and  happiness  to  have 
completed.  It  is  doubtless  in  the  issue  infinitely  worse  for 
those  who  have  never  made  any  reparation.  Those  who  in 
any  degree  have  watched  the  course  of  human  life  know  the 
infinite  tragedy  and  unhappiness  attributable  to  the  immoral 
neglect  of  marriage. 

The  pretty  story  of  "John  Halifax,  Gentleman,"  gives  us  an 
account  how  a  young  lady  honored  with  her  love  the  honest 
young  tanner.  He  knew  nothing  of  his  family,  but  through 
an  old  inscription  in  a  book  he  believed  he  was  a  gentleman 
by  birth,  and,  what  was  much  more  important,  he  always 
showed  himself  a  gentleman  in  the  details  and  all  the  aims  of 
his  life.  A  very  similar  story  is  told  of  Hugh  Miller,  the  stone- 
mason of  Cromarty.  In  his  "  Schools  and  Schoolmasters,"  he 
describes  how  he  first  met  Lydia  Frazer,  his  future  wife.  She 
"  came  hurriedly  tripping  down  the  garden  walk,  very  pretty, 
her  complexion  rather  that  of  a  fair  child  than  a  grown  wom- 
an." The  Mackenzies  considered  themselves  superior  to  the 
Millers,  and  the  mother  required  that  the  intimacy  should  be 
broken  off.  The  mother  removed  the  interdict,  but  marriage 
was  to  be  considered  out  of  the  question.  The  matter  ended, 
as  might  be  expected,  and  forms  one  of  the  prettiest  stories  of 
modern  biography. 

The  love  passages  in  the  life  of  Dr.  Hamilton  are  very  in- 
teresting. I  remember  meeting  him  at  Dartmoor  one  summer 
a  year  or  two  before  he  died.  I  had  attended  the  service  held 


MARRIAGE.  141 


in  the  prison,  where  the  worthy  chaplain  preached  on  the  text 
"  Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow"  to  some  five  hundred  gen- 
tlemen in  yellow,  who  wished  nothing  better  than  that  they 
should  be  allowed  to  take  thought.  Near  to  me  in  the  gal- 
lery was  a  man  with  a  grave,  sweet,  serious  face,  who  attracted 
my  attention,  and  this  was  Dr.  Hamilton.  I  was  presently  in- 
troduced to  him,  and  we  had  some  lunch  together,  and  I  found 
him  a  charming  companion.  Looking  at  his  "  Life"  the  other 
day,  I  found  some  excellent  love-letters.  It  ought  to  be  said 
that  he  was  the  settled  minister  of  a  Presbyterian  congregation 
before  he  wrote  such  letters,  and  his  "  Annie"  must  have  been 
a  very  sensible  girl  to  have  accepted  such  preaching  love-let- 
ters. It  seems  that  he  was  engaged  to  his  affianced  when  she 
was  very  young,  and  with  the  understanding  that  the  marriage 
was  not  to  take  place  for  a  considerable  time.  Dr.  Hamilton 
writes  to  \i\sfiancee: 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  so  fond  of  work,  and  that  you  have  a 
taste  for  music.  The  only  other  thing  about  which  I  am  anx- 
ious is  your  information.  The  world  is  full  of  accomplished 
and  ignorant  women,  who  can  dance,  and  draw,  and  embroid- 
er, but  whose  company  is  far  more  irksome  than  the  solitary 
confinement  of  Pentonville  prison.  If  you  have,  what  you  can 
so  easily  get,  a  well-furnished  mind  (by  adding  diligently  to 
the  knowledge  you  have  already  attained),  you  will  possess 
what  few  of  your  lady  sisters  have.  Two  hours  of  solid  read- 
ing daily,  in  which  I  would  gladly  be  a  sharer  on  the  days  I 
am  at  Willenhall,  would  be  a  goodly  acquisition  in  the  course 
of  a  year "  Yesterday  I  went  back  to  the  same  li- 
brary, and  borrowed  the  last  volume,  and  in  reading  it  was 
surprised  and  happy  to  find  that  the  name  of  the  lady  to  whom 
he  owed  nearly  "  all  the  real  happiness  of  his  life"  was  Annie. 
She  was  a  remarkable  person,  and  theirs  was  a  more  remark- 
able love.  It  is  likely  that  we,  too,  who  have  to  wait  some 


142 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


time  for  our  completed  happiness  on  earth,  may  again  have  to 
wait  a  little  while — the  one  in  the  absence  of  the  other — for 
our  completed  happiness  in  heaven.  To  take  another  in- 
stance, when  Lady  Romilly  died,  poor  Sir  Samuel  had  no  com- 
forter to  go  to.  His  heart  broke,  and  in  the  frenzy  of  his 
grief  he  destroyed  himself. 

So  in  Mr.  Elliott's  "  Life"  of  Lord  Haddo,  afterward  fifth 
Earl  of  Aberdeen,  we  have  the  speech  which  he  made  on  the 
occasion  of  his  daughter's  marriage :  "  Probably  there  are 
many  fathers  present  who  know  what  a  parent's  feelings  are 
in  parting  with  a  beloved  daughter ;  and  that,  joyful  as  the  oc- 
casion is,  it  is  not  without  saddening,  or  at  least  softening  in- 
fluences. The  religious  strain  in  which  Lord  Kintore  spoke, 
and  the  kind  manner  in  which  you  received  his  remarks,  em- 
boldens me  to  ask  for  your  prayers  at  the  approaching  mar- 
riage celebration,  that  the  young  couple  about  to  be  united 
may  not  only  be  fellow-helpers  in  the  journey  of  life,  but  may 
mutually  promote  each  other's  eternal  salvation.  I  have  the 
happiness  to  know  that  my  future  son-in-law  is  not  ashamed  to 
confess  his  desire  to  live  for  something  better  than  the  world 
can  bestow,  and  that  my  daughter  and  her  intended  husband 
do  not  hesitate  to  avow  on  this  their  wedding-day  their  inten- 
tion of  devoting  themselves,  and  all  they  have,  to  the  service  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  Thus  is  theirs  the  certainty  that  when  their 
earthly  union  shall  be  terminated  by  death,  they  will  be  able 
(whichever  be  the  survivor)  to  look  forward  to  a  reunion  in 
Christ's  heavenly  kingdom  for  all  eternity." 

It  is  a  beautiful  and  instructive  love-story  which  we  read  in 
the  "  Memoirs"  of  Henry  Venn  Elliott,  of  Brighton.  He  asked 
her  father  for  "  a  jewel,  which,  though  unworthy  in  himself,  he 
would  wear  most  delicately,  and  treasure  as  his  life."  Mr. 
Elliott's  own  letters  tell  the  story,  and  there  is  hardly  any  pret- 
tier story  in  any  book  of  fiction  than  that  gradually  revealed 
by  these  religious  letters. 


MARRIAGE. 


"  I  have  made  my  proposals  to  Julia  Marshall,  and  am  ac- 
cepted by  the  parents,  if  Julia  consents.  She  will  see  me,  and 
then  decide.  It  was  a  bold  step  I  took.  But  my  mind  was 
so  agitated,  since  hope  sprang  up,  that  I  have  never  had  a 
day's  quiet  or  a  night's  usual  rest  since.  I  believe  I  am  fol- 
lowing my  Lord's  gracious  guiding.  If  ever  I  committed  my 
way  to  him,  it  was  in  this  instance.  He  only  knows  how  it 
will  end.  It  has  altogether  been  a  wonderful  story." 

"  Rejoice  with  me,"  he  says.  "  Julia  has  accepted  me.  A 
few  hours  after  I  wrote  my  dejected  letter  to  my  beloved 
mother,  I  had  a  walk  of  two  hours  with  my  Julia,  and  instead 
of  keeping  me  in  long  suspense  and  probation,  she  generously 
plighted  her  precious  heart  in  exchange  for  mine.  How  joy- 
ful was  I !  and  my  heart  at  this  moment  overflows  with  thank- 
fulness to  God,  who  has  led  me  by  the  right  way  to  the  right 
person." 

"  Deeply  as  I  have  loved  Julia,  and  highly  as  I  valued  her, 
I  find  every  day  fresh  and  fresh  reason  to  bless  God,  who  has 
provided  for  me  such  a  treasure.  And  her  sentiments  are  so 
just,  so  holy,  so  pure,  so  gentle ;  all  her  behavior  is  so  mod- 
est and  winning ;  her  heart  so  confiding  and  affectionate  ;  her 
manner  so  delicate  and  lady-like ;  her  mind  so  richly  furnished, 
and  so  finely  constituted  in  its  original  powers,  that  I  find  in 
her  nothing  to  be  changed,  and  every  thing  to  be  loved.  She 
is,  I  do  assure  you,  an  exquisite  creature  ;  advanced  from  the 
rudiments  in  which  she  appeared  at  Brighton  to  a  mature  per- 
fection, not  only  of  Christian  character,  but  also  of  manners 
and  influence,  which  prove  her  to  be  most  richly  qualified  to 
adorn  the  station  which  is  to  be  hers,  and  to  superintend  all 
the  female  departments  of  my  church.  I  am,  I  confess,  in 
danger  of  making  an  idol  of  her,  but  I  pray  day  by  day  that 
my  love  and  perpetual  complacency  in  her,  in  all  she  says,  in  all 
she  does,  in  all  she  appears,  may  be  submitted  and  conse- 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


crated  to  the  Lord.  He  gave  me  this  most  precious  gift,  and 
I  strive  to  carry  it  to  him,  and  to  beseech  him  that  I  may 
really  possess  it  as  his  gift,  as  a  bond  of  deeper  gratitude 
and  love  to  the  Giver,  and  as  a  rich  talent  to  be  used  in  his 
service.  Already  we  have  begun  some  religious  work,  and 
every  morning  we  read  the  Scriptures  together.  '  Bless  the 
Lord,  O  my  soul,  and  let  all  that  is  within  me  bless  his  holy 
name.' " 

To  these  extracts  I  will  venture  to  add  one  from  Bishop 
Dupanloup's  wise  little  book  "  La  Femme  studieuse :"  "  C'est 
d'avance  et  des  les  premiers  jours  de  leur  manage,  que  de  jeunes 
epoux  doivent  mediter  de  concert  un  plan  de  vie,  plan  large 
et  seVieux,  embrassant  1'ensemble  :  les  devoirs  mutuels,  la  car- 
ribre,  la  position  du  chef  de  famille  dans  son  pays,  les  enfants, 
leur  avenir ;  les  relations  sociales ;  la  vie  prive'e ;  1'age  mur ; 
enfin  la  vieillesse  et  la  mort ;  1'existence,  en  un  mot,  dans  ses 
grandes  phases.  Et  c'est  avec  ces  grandes  lignes  que  tous 
leurs  actes,  tout  d'abord  et  des'le  commencement,  doivent 
etre  mis  en  accord.  De  cette  fagon  seulement  une  femme 
pourra  assurer  la  bonte'  et  1'unitd  de  sa  vie,  et  eViter  les  tristes 
disaccords  qui  se  font  dans  une  existence  abandonnde  a  1'aven- 
ture,  entre  la  jeune  femme  et  la  femme  en  cheveux  blancs. 
Tandis  qu'au  contraire,  si  la  vie  est  bien  ordonne'e,  il  peut  y 
avoir  un  accord  merveilleux  entre  les  ages  diffe'rents  que  Dieu 
fait  passer  sur  sa  tete,  et  qu'elle  doit  successivement  traverser, 
rdpandant  le  charme  et  le  bien  autour  d'elle." 


TRA  VEL. 


'45 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Travel. 

TRAVEL  brings  its  special  "  moments."  It  is  much  when 
one  who  has  lived  for  years  in  a  narrow  circle  first  leaves  the 
limits  of  early  life  and  passes  to  a  different  sphere  and  to 
wider  interests.  What  a  moment  is  that  of  first  foreign  trav- 
el !  What  a  moment  to  many  first  to  behold  the  sea!  though, 
like  Gebir,  one  may  have  murmured, 

"  Is  this  the  mighty  ocean  ?  is  this  all  ?" 

But  first  to  leave  the  old  shores  of  Albion,  and  to  sail  across 
the  waters  to  new  scenes,  which  almost  seemed  to  present,  as 
it  were,  the  life  of  another  planet ;  first  to  see  the  low-lying 
shore  of  Holland,  with  the  wind-mills  and  the  boundless  past- 
ures, or  "  the  palms  and  temples  of  the  South  !"  Most  people 
who  visit  Jerusalem,  first  see  it  with  the  feelings  which  Tasso 
so  eloquently  ascribes  to  the  army  of  the  first  Crusaders. 
Very  often  a  keen  intellectual  expansion  is  afforded  by  foreign 
travel.  After  Lord  Macaulay  had  lived  in  India — we  believe 
he  had  meditated  returning  there  again  at  the  last — there 
was  a  greater  richness  and  expansiveness  in  his  style.  After 
Burke  had  thoroughly  worked  through  and  elaborated  Indian 
subjects,  his  gorgeous  rhetoric  flowered  to  the  uttermost.  It 
may  indeed  be  said  that  some  knowledge  and  familiarity  with 
Oriental  subjects  is  absolutely  necessary  for  any  completeness 
of  mental  vision.  Otherwise  only  one  hemisphere  of  life  and 
thought  is  visible  to  us. 

This  is  the  broadest  aspect.     But  the  subject  of  travel  may 

G 


146  TURNING-1OINTS  IN  LIFE. 

be  brought  within  very  narrow  limits,  expanding  or  diminish- 
ing with  each  man's  experience. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  home  and  foreign  travel,  and,  in- 
deed, change  of  any  kind,  is  one  of  the  most  beneficial  agen- 
cies that  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  our  moral  and  physical 
well-being.  Sir  Henry  Holland,  in  one  of  his  medical  essays, 
very  strongly  advocates  change  of  scene  and  air  in  the  case 
of  a  supposed  patient.  If  he  can  not  travel  he  had  better  go 
from  one  room  to  another,  and  if  he  can  not  leave  his  ro<>m 
the  furniture  of  the  room  had  better  be  changed.  When  all 
medical  art  has  failed,  the  simple  rational  proceeding  of  f\  lit- 
tle travel  has  wrought  wonders.  The  world  is  diseased  and 
out  of  joint,  and  in  one  sense  we  are  all  valetudinarians. 
Perhaps  no  man  is  very  long  free  from  distempered  fancies 
and  worrying  thoughts,  and,  to  use  Baconian  language  rough- 
ly, his  private  den  is  soon  invaded  by  unpleasing  idols.  A 
man  ordinarily  finds  that  he  is  able  to  cast  away  much  worry 
and  fret  by  an  easy  walk  into  the  clear  sunshine  and  liberal 
air.  Travel  is  an  extension  of  this.  Before  the  welcome 
train  has  borne  you  across  country  to  the  next  station,  the 
cares  and  anxieties  which  seemed  so  oppressive  shrink  to 
their  petty  local  and  provincial  measure.  The  eye  is  pleased 
by  shifting  changes,  the  mind  animated  by  the  variety  of  ob- 
jects, and,  without  minutely  analyzing  the  cause,  in  most  cases 
a  good  result  is  easily  perceivable.  It  is  to  be  carefully  ob- 
served that  a  due  measure  and  proportion  should  be  main- 
tained in  reference  to  rest  and  travel.  There  is  many  a  med- 
icine an  over-dose  of  which  produces  the  very  effects  which  it 
was  intended  to  obviate.  One  who  is  always  traveling  loses 
the  capacity  of  the  enjoyment  of  travel.  The  ever-varying 
apartment  which  receives  him  night  after  night  becomes  as 
monotonous  as  the  familiar  four  walls  and  a  ceiling  of  which 
he  had  been  tired,  and  each  fresh  landscape  is  beheld  with  the 


TRA  VEL. 


147 


satiety  of  one  who  is  growing  very  weary  with  his  inspection 
of  a  gallery  of  pictures.  The  most  welcome  change  is  that 
of  rest  and  permanence,  and  the  most  brilliant  flash  of  travel 
that  which  lands  us  at  home  again. 

Human  unity  is  made  up  of  pairs  of  contradictions.  Man- 
kind, according  to  a  phrase  which  Coleridge  borrowed  from 
the  German,  are  made  up  of  Aristotelians  and  Platonists,  and, 
according  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  of  dog-lovers  and  dog-haters. 
These  contradictions  may  be  multiplied  to  any  extent,  and  the 
traveling  and  the  non-traveling  will  hold  as  good  as  any  oth- 
er. There  are  many  who,  according  to  the  saying,  never  feel 
at  home  except  when  they  are  abroad.  Their  eye  is  not  sat- 
isfied with  seeing,  nor  the  ear  with  hearing.  They  are  almost 
Cain-like ;  they  wander  like  the  Wandering  Jew.  They  have 
tasted  of  travel,  and  the  taste  has  left  an  unsatiable  lust  of  lo- 
comotion. They  have 

"  Become  a  name 

For  always  roaming  with  an  hungry  heart  .... 
Yet  all  experience  an  arch  were  thro' 
Gleams  that  untraveled  world." 

Now,  you  will  find  many  persons  who  have  a  very  horror 
of  traveling.  For  them  a  distant  horizon  has  no  charm  of 
meaning.  The  instinct  of  adhesiveness  is  strong  upon  them. 
Only  for  the  briefest  flight  can  they  exalt  their  minds  beyond 
petty  and  local  interests.  It  is  chiefly  those  who  make  it  their 
business  to  know  something  of  the  ways  and  thoughts  of  the 
extreme  poor  who  see  this  phase  of  incurious  and  inert  life. 
I  have  very  repeatedly  met  this  :  notably,  I  remember,  on  the 
south  coast  of  Cornwall,  where  again  and  again  the  nearest 
market-town  was  the  extreme  limit  on  the  west,  and  all  the 
east  was  gloriously  terminated  at  Plymouth.  There  were  the 
flammantia  mania  mundi.  All  beyond  was  void  or  limbo. 
Now,  while  remembering  that  the  instinct  of  travel  should 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


work  within  due  limitations,  and  that  there  are  worse  forms 
of  absenteeism  than  the  common  notion  of  it  presents,  to 
those  who  believe  that  the  cultivation  of  our  intellectual  pow- 
ers is  only  second -in  importance  to  moral  obligations,  this 
travel  itself  becomes  little  else  than  a  moral  obligation  bind- 
ing on  the  non-traveling  part  of  the  community. 

And  if  this  seems  hard  on  the  non-travelers,  I  am  sure  that 
this  duty,  like  every  other,  is  quite  possible  of  fulfillment.  Any 
home-staying  person  may  easily  make  experiment  of  this. 
Let  any  such  person  make  his  home  the  centre  of  a  circle,  no 
radius  of  which  shall  extend  beyond  the  manageable  limits  of 
a  day's  expedition.  I  am  sure  that  he  will  soon  be  able  to 
draw  up  a  list  of  interesting  localities,  for  hardly  a  square  mile 
of  our  crowded  historic  England  is  free  from  such.  Nothing 
is  more  commonly  observed — and  each  such  instance  implies 
a  real  reproach — than  that  strangers  will  often  come  many 
miles  to  view  what  an  inhabitant  has  never  made  any  effort  to 
examine.  Many  a  man  who  now  leads  a  mere  vegetable  life 
might  find  a  constant  source  of  interest  and  change  in  trying 
to  make  his  survey  of  an  interesting  neighborhood  accurate 
and  exhaustive.  If  we  employ  this  little  talent  aright,  a  larger 
talent  will,  doubtless,  be  confided  to  us.  This  brings  us  to 
the  comparative  question  of  home  or  continental  travel.  Now 
home  travel  is  almost  the  instinct  of  duty  and  patriotism. 
Some  amount  of  home  travel  is  absolutely  necessary  in  order 
to  enable  us  to  comprehend  this  England  of  ours  aright.  We 
are  not  yet  arrived  at  that  utterly  stereotyped  condition  of  so- 
ciety to  which  certain  cosmopolitans  think  that  we  are  come. 
.Still  there  are  many  angular,  or  rather  very  triangular,  differ- 
ences between  Lancashire,  Kent,  and  Cornwall.  The  people 
of  the  Orkney  Isles  and  the  people  of  the  Scilly  Isles  are,  I 
believe,  very  much  like  each  other,  but  many  shades  of  differ- 
ence lie  between  the  two  extremes.  There  are  very  many 


TRA  VEL. 


149 


country  people  who  consider  that  London  is  situated  in  par- 
tibus,  and  that  going  into  the  shires  is  like  going  beyond  seas. 
There  is  a  more  thorough  change  of  scene  in  foreign  travel, 
and  more  things  worth  seeing  abroad  than  at  home.  Yet  it 
seems  obviously  designed  that  an  Englishman  should,  for  the 
main  part,  reside  in  England.  Those  lessons  of  catholicity 
and  toleration  which  are  certainly  among  the  best  religious 
lessons  which  we  may  derive  from  foreign  travel,  may  assured- 
ly also  be  learned  in  the  narrowest  circuit  we  have  indicated. 
If  a  distinguished  French  scholar  has  ventured  to  write  his 
Journey  round  his  Room,  an  Englishman  may  also  derive  great 
profit  from  any  journey  round  his  parish,  if  he  is  at  pains  to 
comprehend  and  appreciate  other  classes  other  than  his  own 
class,  other  forms  of  worship  other  than  his  own  form.  Still 
the  wider  the  circle  of  travel,  the  more  ample  will  be  the  range 
of  observation  and  induction.  It  is  the  privilege  of  a  Howard 
to  make  all  travel  strictly  subservient  to  Christian  philanthro- 
py. We  can  not  all  be  Howards,  albeit  Christian  philanthro- 
py is  never  beyond  the  reach  of  any  traveler ;  yet  we  may 
smooth  our  angles,  remove  our  prejudices,  make  ourselves 
wiser  and  more  charitable  by  using  candid  eyes,  and  thus  pro- 
mote peace  and  good-will.  Travel  will  constantly  enable  us 
to  observe  the  real  defects  of  our  own  system  of  things,  and 
to  detect  the  improvements  which  can  be  easily  ingrafted. 
As  this  world  is  the  appointed  theatre  for  man's  energies  and 
capabilities  of  improvement,  every  positive  and  material  good 
has  a  divine  sanction  and  a  heavenly  meaning.  If  we  were 
seeking  to  deal  with  the  subject  in  a  formal  and  exhaustive 
way,  we  might  trace  many  instances  in  which  travel  has  been 
the  appointed  agency  for  mitigating  the  sorrows  and  multiply- 
ing the  blessings  of  humanity. 

There  is  a  curious  proverb  relating  to  travel,  the  meaning 
of  which  ought  to  be  cleared  up,  to  the  effect  that  at  Rome  \ve 


l-o  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

ought  to  do  as  the  Romans  do.  The  words  are  adopted  in  a 
restricted  sense  by  persons  of  pronounced  "  Anglican"  views, 
who,  when  in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  make  a  point  of  at- 
tending the  Roman'  Catholic  service.  Abroad,  the  doors  of 
churches  and  cathedrals  always  stand  open,  which  in  our  land 
fear  for  the  security  of  books  and  plate  will  not  permit,  and  in 
a  moment  we  may  escape  from  the  glare  of  the  streets  and 
the  concourse  of  the  crowd  into  the  dim,  cool,  quiet  aisle,  and, 
should  we  see  much  that  we  disapprove,  may  yet  breathe  our 
prayer  that  those  feeling  after  God  may  find  him,  who  is  not 
far  from  any  one  of  us,  and  for  ourselves  that  we  may  be  sound 
in  faith  and  sound  in  the  rule  of  life.  The  proverb  has,  more- 
over, another  sense  and  a  very  mischievous  one.  One  both 
of  the  blessings  and  the  banes  of  travel  is  that  it  sets  us  free 
from  ordinary  restraints.  A  certain  pressure  and  constraint 
is  upon  every  man  in  his  usual  home.  Inasmuch  as  this  con- 
ventionality is  always  encompassing  us,  and  thereby  the  fluent 
lines  of  character  threaten  to  harden  into  a  rigid  immobility, 
it  is  well  that  such  restraint  should  at  times  be  removed,  if  only 
that  we  may  ascertain  whether  ours  is  a  service  which  is  per- 
fect freedom.  But  many  of  the  mass  plead  the  proverb  as  an 
excuse  for  a  license  and  irregularity  which  public  opinion 
would  not  permit  them  in  their  own  country.  There  are  spe- 
cial reasons  at  the  present  time,  beyond  those  which  always 
remain  strong  and  abiding  reasons,  why  an  English  traveler 
at  Rome,  or  whatever  Rome  stands  for,  should  be  an  English- 
man and  not  a  Roman.  It  is  well,  indeed,  that  the  English- 
man should  lose  his  insularity  and  angularity ;  but  he  should 
always  be  keenly  alive  to  his  character  of  patriot  and  Chris- 
tian. There  is  a  great  deal  of  foreign  suspicion  and  dislike 
toward  the  English,  which,  to  a  great  degree,  they  have  earned 
by  their  own  bad  manners  and  evil  communications.  A  Prus- 
sian entirely  declines  to  believe  that  at  the  present  time  the 


TRAVEL.  151 

Briton  is  "  the  lord  of  human  kind  f  he  thinks,  indeed,  that  he 
is  just  as  good  as  the  Briton  ;  indeed  that,  barring  the  conceit 
and  the  insufferable  overestimate  of  material  wealth,  he  is, 
with  his  needle-gun,  several  degrees  better.  We  have  a  na- 
tional character  which  of  late  years  has  been  fast  going  down 
in  the  estimation  of  foreign  nations,  but  which  every  English- 
man will  use  his  endeavors  to  maintain  at  its  just  standard. 
The  present  condition  of  religion  on  the  Continent  must  also 
deepen  our  impressions  relative  to  the  religious  aspect  of  trav- 
el. There  is  every  where  a  shivering,  such  as  the  prophet 
saw  in  vision,  of  the  breath  of  life  animating  the  dry  bones. 
The  Southern  nations  at  last  appear  to  be  working  their  way 
out  in  the  direction  of  a  religious  reformation.  Three  centu- 
ries ago  the  boon  was  offered  them,  and  not  without  great  sor- 
row and  struggle  it  was  rejected,  and  now  once  more,  as  if  in 
sibylline  leaves,  the  offer  is  renewed.  May  this,  indeed,  even 
here,  prove  "  leaves  for  the  healing  of  the  nations  !"  As  en- 
lightened and  religious  Englishmen  may  still  continue  to  think 
that  they,  with  others,  are  repositaries  and  guardians  of  the 
highest  truths,  so  it  must  devolve  upon  them  by  all  wise  and 
kindly  means  to  hand  onward  to  distant  countries  and  centu- 
ries the  torch  of  truth  kindled  from  afar,  but  kept  alive  at  their 
own  altars.  They  will  best  do  this,  not,  indeed,  by  proselytiz- 
ing, not  by  seeking  to  impress  their  own  local  and  temporary 
accidents  of  position  on  others,  not  by  seeking  an  exact  re- 
production of  their  own  ecclesiastical  system  on  the  part  of 
foreign  Churches,  but  by  the  manifestation  of  sympathy,  good- 
ness, and  toleration,  by  well-considered  material  assistance,  by 
exemplifying  a  true  catholicity  and  a  real  communion,  and  by 
setting  an  example  of  practical  stainlessness  and  beneficence. 
In  this  way  our  travels  may  aid  the  wonderful  order  of  events 
in  the  present  age,  and  the  reflex  influence  must  inevitably  be 
full  of  use  and  happiness  to  ourselves  and  our  own  land. 


152  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

For  instance,  the  Church  of  England  work  now  going  on  at 
Seville  is  of  a  very  curious  and  interesting  kind.  It  appears  to 
indicate  that  the  grave  Spaniards  who  are  leaving  their  own 
Church  nevertheless  give  a  distinct  preference  to  the  episcopal 
and  liturgical  system  of  the  Church  of  England,  compared 
with  that  severer  Presbyterian  type  more  generally  adopted  by 
Reformed  Churches  on  the  Continent.  The  English  consular 
chaplain  at  Seville  lately  gave,  at  one  of  those  drawing-room 
meetings  which  are  common  during  the  London  season,  an 
account  of  the  full  introduction  of  the  machinery  of  a  well- 
worked  English  parish  into  that  magnificent  historic  city. 
There  are  day-schools,  Sunday-schools,  mission-houses,  Bible- 
classes  ;  and  a  large  church,  seating  many  hundreds,  and  quite 
full,  has  been  rented  for  performing  our  service  in  the  Span- 
ish language.  The  chaplain  really  appears  to  have  shown 
some  of  that  statesmanlike  skill  and  ability  which  in  mission 
work  has  been  almost  monopolized  by  Romanist  ecclesiastics. 
As  much  as  possible  he  keeps  the  foreign  English  element 
out  of  sight  from  the  sensitive  Spaniards,  and  employs  Span- 
ish agents  in  his  Church  work.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that 
Presbyterianism  is  entirely  unsuited  to  the  genius  of  Italy  and 
Spain.  The  tendency  of  the  anti-papal  movement  in  these 
countries  is  toward  mere  negation  ;  the  bare,  repellant  Puritan 
system  does  not  suit  the  Southern  nature.  The  Church  of 
England  offers  many  points  of  sympathy  and  contact  in  her 
regenerated  services  to  the  historical  forms  of  religion  in  the 
South  of  Europe,  and  Seville  is  giving  proof  of  the  idea  often 
expressed,  that  a  spontaneous  reformation  in  the  South  would 
most  probably  result  in  a  system  closely  akin  to  the  Anglican 
system. 

Let  us  next  narrow  the  subject  into  more  special  consider- 
ations. In  a  religious  sense  the  primary  view  of  traveling  is 
that  we  are  enabled  thereby  to  read  God's  handwriting  in 


TRA  VEL. 


153 


nature.  That  volume  of  nature,  indeed,  lies  every  where  out- 
spread before  us.  But  traveling  enables  us  to  turn  over  so 
many  more  leaves  of  that  volume.  There  is  something  almost 
awful  in  the  familiarity  which  many  pure-hearted  and  able 
men  have  attained  with  nature,  whereby  they  are  able  at 
sight  to  read  off  her  splendid  page,  and  to  come  nigher  to 
the  secret  of  the  Almighty,  by  deciphering  that  revelation  of 
himself  which  he  has  given  in  the  world  that  he  has  created 
— a  revelation  invisible,  inaudible,  to  those  who  see  with  eyes 
that  see  not,  and  hear  with  ears  that  hear  not.  Our  thought 
evermore  should  be  with  that  "Almighty  Artist  who  paints 
every  spring  new  landscapes  on  the  earth,  and  every  evening 
new  ones  in  the  sky,  whose  sculptures  are  the  melting  clouds 
and  the  everlasting  hills,  and  whose  harp  of  countless  strings 
includes  each  note  from  the  harebell's  tinkle  to  the  organic 
roll  of  ocean's  thunder."  These  words  are  from  a  Presby- 
terian clergyman,  and  I  would  parallel  with  them  that  most 
famous  and  beautiful  sentence  from  John  Henry  Newman: 
"  Every  breath  of  air,  and  ray  of  light  and  heat,  every  beauti- 
ful prospect,  is,  as  it  were,  the  skirts  of  their  garments,  the 
waving  of  the  robes  of  those  whose  faces  see  God  in  heaven." 
The  religious  delight  of  scenery  is  a  gift  reserved  for  the  pure 
in  heart.  To  them  all  nature  is  like  Memnon's  harp,  which, 
met  by  the  rising  sun,  was  recognized  by  all  to  give  forth 
musical  sounds,  but  to  the  initiated  alone  did  the  sounds  re- 
solve themselves  into  -an  intelligible  hymn — 
"  I  see  a  hand  you  can  not  see, 
I  hear  a  voice  you  can  not  hear." 

The  intellectual  enjoyment  of  travel  depends  very  much 
upon  our  sense  of  beauty  and  our  susceptibility  of  being  in- 
fluenced by  the  laws  of  association.  The  sense  of  the  beauty 
of  scenery  requires  cultivation,  and  may  be  infinitely  height- 
ened and  improved.  With  this  sense  the  most  ordinary  aspect 

G2 


154 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE, 


of  nature  has  become  vested  with  a  poetical  beauty  denied  to 
the  grandest  scenery.  No  one  has  done  for  the  Himalayas 
what  Mr.  Tennyson  has  done  for  the  fenny  country  of  Lincoln- 
shire. In  this  way,  too,  a  very  quiet  and  subdued  landscape 
will  give  some  men  a  sense  of  beauty  and  enjoyment  denied 
to  rich  vulgarians,  who  "  do"  all  the  choicest  scenes  of  Europe 
in  their  own  carriages. 

One  meets  with  astonishing  instances  of  utter  insensibility 
on  the  part  of  traveling  people  on  their  travels.  I  have  seen 
Oxford  men  smoking  in  the  cabin  of  a  steamer  as  they  passed 
the  finest  scenery  on  the  Rhine,  and  men  fast  asleep  in  the 
cabin  as  they  passed  the  finest  scenery  on  the  Dart.  The 
mention  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Dart  recalls  a  curious  anecdote 
which  a  distinguished  friend  once  told  me,  which  may  well 
suggest  questions  both  on  self-deception  and  on  the  philos- 
ophy of  travel.  It  is  well  known  that  in  the  west  country 
the  Dart  is  called  the  English  Rhine.  My  friend  met  a  Prus- 
sian gentleman  on  board  the  Dart  steamer.  The  Prussian 
told  him  that  he  had  heard  the  Dart  called  the  English  Rhine, 
and  that  he  was  now  viewing  the  Dart  in  order  to  judge  of  the 
truth  of  the  comparison.  My  friend  happened  to  remark  that 
of  course  he  knew  the  Rhine  very  well.  "Not  in  the  least," 
was  the  reply ;  he  "  had  only  passed  it  once  on  the  railway  at 
Cologne."  But  being  a  German,  and  knowing  all  about  the 
character  of  the  people,  their  history  and  literature,  he  could 
evolve  the  idea  of  the  Rhine  out  of  his  own  consciousness. 
Given  the  history  and  the  literature,  the  idea  of  the  local 
scenery  could  always  be  evolved  out  of  one's  own  internal 
being.  "  For  instance,"  said  the  metaphysical  German,  "  I 
have  never  been  to  Switzerland,  yet  I  am  perfectly  acquainted 
with  Swiss  scenery."  I  am  afraid  his  judgment  would  not  be 
worth  much  on  the  mooted  point  respecting  the  Dart.  One 
envies  the  facility  with  which  an  immense  amount  of  traveling 


TRA  VEL. 


155 


can  be  done  without  the  inconvenient  drawback  of  traveling 
expenses.  It  is  a  bold  idea  to  supersede  locomotion  by  the 
internal  consciousness. 

But  though  history  and  literature  will  not  enable  us  thus  to 
evolve  scenery  with  perfect  accuracy,  it  is  quite  impossible  to 
enjoy  scenery  without  literature  and  history.  For  the  historian 
himself  traveling  is  the  absolutely  necessary  complement  to 
study.  What  military  historian  can  describe  a  battle  without 
examining  the  field  ?  Does  not  Mr.  Froude  pass  a  good  deal 
of  time  at  Simancas,  and,  of  course,  also  inspect  the  localities 
which  he  describes?  Did  not  Macaulay  stay  patiently  in 
Devonshire  to  understand  Sedgmoor,  in  Londonderry  to  com- 
prehend its  siege,  in  Scotland  if  only  to  give  that  famous  de- 
scription of  Glencoe  ?  Mr.  Freeman  diligently  works  up  his 
battle-fields.  And,  without  being  an  historian,  an  intelligent 
traveler  will  be  constantly  clearing  up  points  of  history  to 
his  own  satisfaction,  and  will  probably  be  able  to  contribute 
crumbs  of  valuable  information  to  the  elucidation  of  great 
subjects.  There  are  many  quarters  where  every  trifle  of  ac- 
curate information  is  thankfully  received.  Great  writers  would 
not  be  able  to  produce  great  books,  or  great  orators  to  make 
great  speeches,  without  a  measure  of  the  assistance  and  co- 
operation of  humbler  men  in  supplying  materials.  A  large 
part  of  the  religious  influence  of  travel  must  mainly  consist  in 
the  fact  that  travel  is  an  instrument  of  knowledge.  I  know 
that  the  tree  of  knowledge,  even  as  it  proved  in  Eden,  is  some- 
times as  a  tree  of  death,  and  its  fruit  as  ashes  to  the  taste. 
She  is  not  the  first,  nor  yet  the  second.  Love,  faith,  duty,  all 
transcend  even  the  mighty  claims  that  belong  to  her.  But  to 
grow  in  knowledge  is  a  religious  obligation;  the  wise  man 
well  said  "  that  the  soul  be  without  knowledge  is  not  good." 
Ignorance  is  one  of  the  ugliest  forms  of  sin.  I  wonder  that 
so  many  practical  Christians  can  sleep  quietly  in  their  beds 


156  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

when  they  know  that  they  are  so  absorbed  in  business  that 
year  glides  after  year  without  any  perceptible  addition  to  the 
stock  of  their  knowledge  and  ideas.  A  wise  man  when  he 
travels  will  utterly  fa.il  to  look  upon  travel  as  a  mere  pleasur- 
able change.  He  will  regard  it  as  a  precious  and  compara- 
tively rare  means  of  intellectual  culture.  He  will  confess  to 
himself  that,  after  all,  his  seeing  is  but  the  seeing  "  through  a 
glass  darkly ;"  but  he  is  not  without  the  presentiment  that  it 
will  be  good  for  him  to  be  learning  till  the  last  day  of  his  life, 
and  that  in  some  mysterious  way  the  larger  sum  of  his  knowl- 
edge here  is  connected  with  richer  fruitage  of  knowledge  here- 
after. 

Knowledge,  then,  will  make  travel  of  more  enjoyment,  and 
travel  will  make  knowledge  of  closer  accuracy  and  higher  use. 
We  bring  to  an  object  much  more  than  the  object  brings  to 
us.  Knowledge  holds  the  key  of  all  the  associations.  To  the 
men  who  know,  "  the  burial-places  of  memory  yield  up  their 
dead."  This  also  gives  what  I  would  almost  call  a  rarer  and 
safer  element  of  delight  than  the  balm  of  the  air  or  the  beauty 
of  the  scene.  For  the  mind  tinges  every  object  with  the  hue 
of  its  own  mood.  The  man  who  is  sorrowful  or  remorseful, 
despondent  or  despairing,  will  only  momentarily  be  lulled  by 
the  symphonies  and  choric  voices  of  nature.  Rather  her  great 
glory  will  be  withering  and  crushing,  and  the  beauty  of  the 
summer  sunset  will  be  simply  heart-breaking.  I  fully  sym- 
pathize with  that  frank,  pure  glee  of  a  poet  whom  I  can  not 
unlearn  to  love  and  admire : 

"  I  care  not,  Fortune,  what  you  me  deny : 

You  can  not  rob  me  of  free  Nature's  grace ; 
You  can  not  shut  the  windows  of  the  sky, 
Through  which  Aurora  shows  her  blooming  face." 

But  the  time  comes  when  nature  only  gives  us  hard,  scien- 
tific facts,  unrelieved  by  much  of  free  grace ;  and  as  for  poor 


TRA  VEL. 


'57 


Aurora,  she  is  among  the  dim,  discrowned  deities  of  a  dis- 
carded mythology.  But  the  intellectual  pleasures  of  travel 
are  free  from  this  kind  of  incertitude.  When  once  the  intel- 
lectual pleasure  is  aroused,  when  once  the  mental  exertion  is 
made,  by  the  very  fact  the  previous  feelings  are  effectually  dis- 
placed. When  the  mountain  and  lake  shed  poetic  inspira- 
tion it  is  because  the  peculiar  genius  of  the  mountain  and 
lake  is  comprehended.  What  is  the  river  of  Palestine,  or  the 
river  of  Egypt,  or  the  river  of  Germany,  apart  from  that  "  in- 
spiration" which  belongs  to  each?  It  is  a  pure  intellectual 
pleasure  to  see  some  chantry  or  monument  in  an  old  cathe- 
dral, where  memory  supplies  comment  and  inspiration ;  to 
visit  rocks  and  woods  associated  with  immortal  pages  of  lit- 
erature and  the  memories  of  great  men  ;  to  examine  the  cities 
and  plains  where  the  great  historical  battles  and  sieges  of 
European  history  have  occurred ;  to  know  thoroughly  the 
royal  palaces  and  baronial  castles  with  which  history's  state- 
liest page  is  occupied,  together  with  the  humble  village,  or  the 
mean  abode,  rural  or  urban,  where  some  art  or  science  had  its 
rise,  or  which  cradled  the  childhood  of  a  nation's  most  illus- 
trious son.  Properly  to  understand  the  Low  Countries  requires 
a  special  preparation.  The  wealth  of  association  in  Italy, 
classical,  mediaeval,  and  modern,  is  so  great  that  the  best-in- 
formed travelers  will  despair  of  overtaking  it  in  its  entirety ; 
but  every  approximate  step  toward  real  knowledge  will  indef- 
initely help  us  toward  deriving  an  intellectual,  and  therefore 
religious,  good  from  travel.  A  Christian  man  will  also  have 
a  special  pleasure  in  visiting  places  associated  with  religious 
history.  In  his  case  the  association,  and  that  alone,  prompts 
the  feeling  which  prompts  the  visit.  A  chance  passenger 
near  Salisbury  sees  nothing  at  a  little  adjacent  village  in  that 
curiously  small  church  just  opposite  the  rectory,  incrusted 
with  moss  and  ivy,  and  the  little  church-yard  overgrown  with 


I58  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

weeds,  especially  since,  close  at  hand,  there  is  the  new  and 
stately  church,  which  can  so  worthily  supply  the  wants  of  the 
vicinity.  But  George  Herbert  used  to  preach  in  that  little 
church  of  Bemerton— preached  the  sermons  which  the  public 
orator  of  Cambridge  would  preach  so  eloquently,  and  offered 
those  very  prayers,  before  and  after  service,  which  honest 
Izaak  Walton  has  preserved  for  us — and  this  other  church  is 
a  memorial  to  him,  and  without  this  little  church  might  not 
have  been.  There  is  a  smaller  church  yet,  which  is  saying 
much — it  must  be  the  smallest,  or  nearly  the  smallest,  in  En- 
gland— at  Bonchurch,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight;  and  "within  the 
sounding  of  the  wave"  there  is  a  grave-yard  monument  where 
a  raised  cross  at  times  flings  a  shadow  on  the  tomb.  But  we 
recognize  it  as  the  grave  of  William  Adams,  the  sweet-natured 
scholar  who  wrote  the  "  Shadow  of  the  Cross,"  and  was  the 
most  accomplished  master  of  modern  allegory.  That  church 
of  Hursley  in  Hampshire,  with  its  spire  so  conspicuous  for 
miles,  over  upland  and  down,  would  arrest  the  attention  of 
any  beholder  by  its  completeness  and  richness  of  restoration ; 
but  for  those  who  knew  and  loved  the  author  of  the  "  Chris- 
tian Year,"  in  that  and  other  books,  it  will  have  a  depth  and 
tenderness  of  association,  in  connection  with  their  own  holiest 
experiences,  which  the  material  beauty  of  the  fabric  by  itself 
would  be  powerless  to  evoke.  In  every  great  scene  of  the 
world's  history  there  is  something  to  stir  the  breath  and 
quicken  the  heart ;  we  feel,  to  use  Dr.  Johnson's  famous  lan- 
guage, when  visiting  lona,  that  it  is  impossible  to  pass  un- 
moved ;  there  is  something  which  elevates  our  piety  and  pa- 
triotism ;  we  are  advanced  in  the  dignity  of  thinking  beings. 
Indeed,  when  we  visit  the  scenes  associated  with  a  good  man's 
orbed  and  completed  course,  we  are  surely  quickened  with  a 
sense  of  our  own  unworthiness  and  insufficiency ;  we  may  de- 
rive from  his  memory  some  recollections  that  may  lessen  sor- 


TRAVEL.  159 

row,  and  may  quicken  effort,  and  may  exalt  faith;  we  are 
thankful  for  those  who  have  departed  this  life  in  his  faith  and 
fear,  and  cherish  the  trembling  hope  that  we,  too,  may  be 
found  "  in  the  blessed  company  of  all  faithful  people." 

Madame  de  Stae'l  used  to  say  that  traveling  was  one  of  the 
saddest  pleasures  of  life.  I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
truth  in  this  phrase.  Every  traveler  at  times  answer's  Gold, 
smith's  description  :  "  Remote,  unfriended,  melancholy,  slow." 
There  was  no  one  in  his  age  who  traveled  more,  or  whose 
travels  have  been  more  famous,  than  St.  Paul.  Yet  in  a  great 
degree  it  must  have  been  a  sorrowful  matter,  apart  from  his 
special  difficulties  as  an  apostle,  and  from  those  "perils," 
most  of  which  have  been  eliminated  from  modern  life.  He 
was  a  most  affectionate-hearted  man,  and  in  various  ways  he 
must  have  been  constantly  wounded  in  his  affection.  He 
formed  no  tie  which  he  was  not  speedily  compelled  to  sever. 
He  would  come  to  a  city  and  make  strangers  friends,  and 
then  soon  he  would  leave  his  friends  and  sojourn  among 
strangers.  Now  something  of  this  kind  must  happen  to 
one  who  travels.  He  must  at  times  linger  in  spots  where 
his  feeling  is  that  it  is  good  to  be,  and  that  here  he  would 
fain  set  up  his  tabernacle.  Almost  unexpectedly  he  has 
alighted  on  that  very  corner  of  the  world  which  in  all  its  be- 
longings and  surroundings  seems  to  suit  him  best.  He  meets 
the  most  charming  people  he  has  ever  known  ;  he  finds  him- 
self taking  a  growing  interest  in  the  history  and  politics  of  the 
district,  and  irresistibly  drawn  toward  the  land-owner  or  the 
cure;  that  rounded  bay,  with  the  castle  on  the  cliff,  and  the 
orchard  in  the  hollow,  and  the  light-house  far  away  at  sea,  ex- 
actly suit  his  sense  of  proportion  and  beauty.  He  would  soon 
be  a  botanist  in  those  woods,  and  a  zoologist  among  those 
rocks  at  low  water.  There  are  some  men  who  find  it  impos- 
sible to  leave,  without  some  touch  of  sorrow,  any  place  where 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


they  have  resided  for  some  little  time,  and  whose  moral  ten- 
tacles adhere  most  strongly  to  any  surface  that  may  be  pre- 
sented to  them.  Even  the  most  indifferent  men  find  on  some 
rare  occasion  that  they  have  found  that  very  spot  of  earth 
which,  to  the  best  of  their  own  self-knowledge,  would  suit  them 
best.  But  a  necessity  is  on  them,  and  they  must  be  moving 
on.  They  are  due  at  some  other  place.  They  have  formed 
a  definite  arrangement,  from  which  there  seems  no  fair  way 
of  escape.  They  can  hardly  hope  that  any  change  will  im- 
prove their  lot  for  the  better;  they  would  willingly  compro- 
mise for  things  as  they  are ;  they  will  be  glad  even  if  they 
can  henceforth  obtain  an  enduring  approximation  to  that 
sense  of  contentment  and  calm  and  peace  of  mind  which  for 
these  happy  days  have  wrapped  them  as  with  a  mantle,  and 
guarded  them  as  with  a  shield.  But  their  destiny  is  upon 
them,  and  they  are  unable  to  extricate  themselves. 

Perhaps  such  persons  require  a  grave  lesson  to  be  taught 
them.  Their  disposition  is  such  that  they  would  most  will- 
ingly linger  among  the  fading  bowers  of  earth,  oblivious  that 
those  bowers  must  fade,  and  so  forgetful  of  those  only  happy 
isles,  those  only  amaranthine  gardens,  where  an  immortal  soul 
may  find  an  enduring  home.  Therefore  it  is  that  they  find 
no  sure  rest  for  the  sole  of  their  feet,  and  some  marring  ele- 
ment is  allowed  to  be  mixed  up  with  what  otherwise  would  be 
a  rounded  and  happy  life.  Our  tendrils  cling  so  easily  and 
naturally  to  earth,  that  we  need  to  be  often  reminded  that  we 
are  but  strangers  and  pilgrims  here,  and,  amid  all  traveling,  to 
realize  that  great  travel  of  all,  in  which  we  seek  an  abiding 
city.  As  a  man  moves  from  land  to  land,  and  observes 
"  cities  of  men,  nations,  and  governments,"  he  may,  perhaps, 
better  learn  to  realize  that  he  is  but  a  traveler  between  two 
eternities. 

And  it  may  even  be  that  whatever  is  most  exalted  and 


TRAVEL.  IOI 

good  in  travel  may  be  continued  to  us  in  a  future  state  of 
existence.  I  remember  hearing  of  some  good  man  who  had 
never  seen  the  Alps,  but  said  that  he  intended  to  take  them 
on  his  way  up  to  heaven.  Those  who,  chained  down  to  home 
by  the  invisible  links  of  a  thousand  duties,  have  never  been 
able  to  see  God's  handicraft  of  the  mountains  and  his  won- 
ders of  the  deep,  may  yet  behold  a  loftier  Chimborazo,  a  more 
sublime  Andes,  and  contemplate  the  unspeakable  beauty  of 
the  hyaline  of  heaven.  As  upon  a  serene  night  the  stars 
come  out,  army  upon  army,  and  the  very  dust  of  stars,  beyond 
the  ken  of  distant  vision,  seems,  as  the  sand  upon  the  sea- 
shore, innumerable,  we  begin  to  comprehend  the  boundless 
possibilities  of  knowledge  for  those  who  are  thought  worthy 
to  attain  to  the  first  resurrection.  Then  one  can  almost  de- 
spise the  littleness  of  this  poor,  slight  planet,  and  almost  wel- 
come death,  that  throws  open  the  gates  of  infinite  space.  In 
the  fathomless  riches  of  eternity  it  will  seem  but  as  the  occu- 
pation of  one  of  the  deep  unclouded  days  of  heaven  to  take 
leave  of  friends,  for  some  five  hundred  years,  to  make  the  tour 
of  Jupiter's  satellites,  or  examine  into  the  condition  of  the 
whilom  earth.  But  I  come  to  a  point  where  speculation  is 
lost  in  awe  and  mysteries,  and  where  human  analogies  may 
cease  to  shadow  forth,- even  ever  so  dimly,  the  heavenly  real- 
ities. Here,  then,  I  pause. 


1 62  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Literature,  Science,  and  Art. 

I  SUPPOSE  we  are  all  believers  in  the  boundless  power  of 
steady,  persevering  work.  "  Never  despair,"  wrote  Edmund 
Burke  to  his  friend,  "the  high-souled  and  generous"  Wick- 
ham  ;  "but  if  you  do,  work  in  despair."  As  Matthew  Arnold 

says  : 

"And  tasks  in  hours  of  insight  willed, 
In  hours  of  gloom  can  be  fulfilled." 

0  si  sic  omnia  !    Why  should  not  Matthew  Arnold  give  us 
noble  poetry,  instead  of  attacking  worthy  dissenters,  and  as- 
saulting the  very  foundations  even  of  natural  religion  ?     And, 
as  the  laureate  says : 

"  But  well  I  know 

That  unto  him  that  works  and  feels  he  works 
This  same  New  Year  is  ever  at  the  door." 

And  to  make  one  more  quotation :  "  Even  in  the  meanest 
sorts  of  labor,  the  whole  soul  of  a  man  is  composed  into  a  kind 
of  real  harmony  the  instant  he  sets  himself  to  work." 

1  am  not  one  of  those  who  would  recommend  to  any  young 
man  the  deliberate  choice  of  literature  as  a  profession.     In 
fact  I  greatly  object  to  the  idea  of  literature  as  a  profession. 
Journalism  may,  and  according  to  modern  exigencies  must  be, 
a  profession,  but  literature  ought  to  lie  open  to  all  ranks  and 
orders  of  society.    There  are  many  patent  reasons  why  we  can 
give  very  few  encouraging  words  to  those  who  would  adopt 
letters  as  a  distinct  path  in  life.     It  is,  as  Bacon  said,  a  good 


LITERATURE,   SCIENCE,   AND   ART.  163 

staff,  but  a  sorry  crutch.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  help  a  man,  but 
a  bad  thing  whereon  to  rest.  It  is  not  the  most  remunerative, 
and  per  se  it  is  not  the  most  useful  of  avocations.  Then  there 
is  a  very  common  and  a  very  fatal  confusion  of  thought  be- 
tween the  desire  and  the  ability  to  pursue  a  literary  career. 
Then  the  competition  is  enormous.  Most  editors  of  maga- 
zines will  say  that  they  could  fill  their  periodicals  years  in  ad- 
vance with  very  fair,  printable  matter  that  is  sent  in  to  them. 
Then  there  is  a  good  deal  of  social  disadvantage  about  litera- 
ture, and  though  bookish  people  will  think  well  of  a  litterateur, 
to  be  one  is  hardly  a  recommendation  to  society  at  large. 

Still  there  is  another  side  of  the  case  which  has  to  be  stated, 
and  which  is  more  fraught  with  encouragement.  There  is  an 
enormous  amount  of  "  copy "  to  be  produced  every  morning, 
every  week,  every  month,  every  quarter,  every  year,  and  there 
must  be  an  army  of  writers  to  produce  it.  There  is  no  reason 
why  a  man  of  fair  culture  and  intelligence  should  not  find  some 
sort  of  service  in  that  army.  In  the  first  ranks  of  literature 
stand  the  great  geniuses  of  the  world,  who  are  on  an  intellect- 
ual platform  infinitely  exalted  above  their  fellows.  But  there 
is  also  an  immense  literary  field  which  may  be  occupied  by 
the  rank  and  file.  A  man  of  culture,  observation,  intelligence, 
with  a  power  of  clear  thought  and  fluent  expression,  ought  to 
be  able  to  find  something  to  do.  Poeta  nascitur,  orator  Jit,  is  a 
saying  which  may  be  adopted  into  the  statement  that  while 
the  genius  must  be  born,  a  man  may  make  himself  a  fairly 
good  writer.  If  he  has  leisure  and  independence,  if  he  has 
patience  and  industry,  if  he  can  afford  to  bide  his  time,  let  him 
persevere,  and  the  chances  are  that  his  perseverance  will  be 
rewarded  by  results.  And  though  one  would  be  very  sorry  to 
induce  any  man  deliberately  to  embrace  this  as  a  profession, 
yet  to  clergymen  of  insufficient  income,  to  briefless  barristers, 
to  all  who  amid  the  rise  of  prices  are  condemned  to  fixed  in- 


1 64  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

comes,  it  is  very  allowable  to  try  and  do  something  in  letters, 
and  creditable  workmanship  will  find  its  way  at  last. 

Success  may  be  late  in  coming,  but  sometimes  when  it 
comes  it  makes  amends  for  much  previous  failure.  Sometimes 
decided  genius  has  to  wait  as  long  as  cultivated  mediocrity. 
It  is  good,  perhaps,  that  it  should  have  to  wait,  for  those 
who  have  obtained  instantaneous  recognition  have  not  always 
found  it  for  their  good.  Byron  awoke  one  morning  and  found 
himself  famous,  but  the  fame  helped  to  spoil  him  and  slay 
him.  Burns  had  his  triumphant  winter  in  Edinburgh,  but  that 
"  triumphant  winter"  was  a  great  misfortune.  As  a  rule,  too, 
the  fashionable  favorite  is  soon  discrowned.  He  can  not  do 
better  for  the  world  than  die  early  if  he  has  pleased  the  world 
when  young.  Many  instances  might  be  given  where  men  have 
published  again  and  again,  with  very  limited  success  or  no 
success  at  all,  but  feeling  that  they  have  had  something  to 
say,  they  have  gone  on  saying  it,  and  ultimately  they  have 
succeeded.  Perhaps  the  delay  was  good  for  them.  To  others 
the  delay  has  been  fatal — the  frost  has  killed.  Humanly  speak- 
ing, Keats  might  have  lived  if  he  had  had  the  success  of  Ten- 
nyson, but  the  Quarterly  killed  him,  as  it  afterward  tried  to 
kill  Tennyson,  and  the  Edinburgh  to  kill  Wordsworth. 
"  Tis  strange  the  mind,  that  very  fiery  particle, 
Should  let  itself  be  snuffed  out  by  an  article." 

But  now  the  Quarterly  has  recanted,  and  Jeffrey  is  dragged 
in  triumph  at  the  chariot-wheel  of  Wordsworth. 

And  yet  how  slow  has  the  progress  of  some  of  our  greatest 
men  been !  How  exceedingly  slow  and  grudging  was  the 
recognition  accorded  to  Wordsworth!  Some  of  our  most 
popular  works  of  fiction  have  been  refused  by  publisher  after 
publisher.  Charlotte  Bronte  with  difficulty  made  her  way. 
Thackeray  had  "Vanity  Fair"  returned  upon  his  hands. 
Sometimes  what  appears  to  be  a  lucky  chance  will  intervene. 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART.  165 

Johnson's  life  might  furnish  one  continued  allegory  of  perse- 
verance against  difficulties. 

Similarly  take  art.  What  a  moment  is  that  when  the  boy 
or  girl  sits  down  and  makes  some  first  intellectual  effort ! 
The  child  has  read  poetry,  enjoyed  and  appreciated  it,  never- 
theless with  the  thought  that  it  is  something  foreign,  and  al- 
together far  off  from  its  own  sphere.  He  sits  down ;  some 
thought  is  stirring  in  the  heart,  some  impulse  twittering  in  the 
brain  ;  some  melodious  lines  flow  forth ;  he  discovers  that  he 
too  has  the  gift  of  musical  expression.  Or  he  has  watched 
nature  long,  and  with  a  suddenness  of  surprise,  perhaps  when 
stretched  on  the  ground  watching  the  colors  of  the  foliage,  or 
the  lignes  larges  of  the  landscape,  finds  that  he  has  the.  faculty 
of  drawing  from  nature,  and  of  reproducing  those  colors. 
What  a  pretty  story  is  that  which  Vasari  tells  of  Michael 
Angelo !  how  "  it  chanced  that  when  Domenico  was  painting 
the  great  Chapel  of  Santa  Maria  Novella,  he  one  day  went 
out,  and  Michael  Angelo  then  set  himself  to  draw  the  scaf- 
folding, with  some  trestles,  the  various  utensils  of  the  art,  and 
some  of  those  young  men  who  were  then  working  there.  Do- 
menico, having  returned,  and  seen  the  drawing  of  Michael 
Angelo,  exclaimed,  '  This  boy  knows  more  than  I  do,'  stand- 
ing in  amaze  at  the  originality  and  novelty  of  manner  which 
the  judgment  imparted  to  him  by  Heaven  had  enabled  a  mere 
child  to  exhibit."  West  said  that  a  kiss  from  his  mother  made 
him  a  painter.  Something  very  similar  is  told  of  Maclise,  the 
great  painter,  whose  recent  loss  we  deplore. 

In  the  autumn  of  1825,  Sir  Walter  Scott  made  a  hasty  tour 
of  Ireland,  accompanied  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lockhart  and  Miss 
Edgeworth.  Among  other  places,  he  stayed  a  short  time  at 
Cork,  and,  while  there,  he  visited  the  establishment  of  Mr. 
Bolster,  an  eminent  bookseller.  The  presence  of  the  illustri- 
ous author  attracted  crowds  of  literary  persons  there.  Mac- 


1 66  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

lise,  then  a  mere  boy,  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  sketch 
of  Sir  Walter,  and,  having  placed  himself  unobserved  in  a  part 
of  the  shop  which  afforded  him  an  admirable  opportunity,  he 
made,  in  a  few  minutes,  three  outline  sketches,  each  in  a  dif- 
ferent position.  He  brought  them  home,  and,  having  selected 
one  which  he  considered  the  best,  worked  at  it  the  whole 
night,  and  next  morning  brought  to  Bolster  a  highly  finished 
pen-and-ink  drawing  handled  with  all  the  elaborate  minute- 
ness of  a  line  engraving.  Bolster  placed  it  in  a  conspicuous 
part  of  his  shop,  and  Sir  Walter  with  his  friends  having  again 
called  during  the  day,  it  attracted  his  attention  when  he  en- 
tered. He  was  struck  with  the  exquisite  finish  and  fidelity  of 
the  drawing,  and  at  once  inquired  the  name  of  the  artist  who 
had  executed  it.  Maclise,  who  was  standing  in  a  remote  part 
of  the  shop,  was  brought  forward  and  introduced  to  Sir  W'alter. 
The  great  author  took  him  kindly  by  the  hand,  and  expressed 
his  astonishment  that  a  mere  boy  could  have  achieved  such  a 
work,  and  predicted  that  he  would  yet  distinguish  himself. 
Sir  Walter  then  asked  for  a  pen,  and  wrote  with  his  own  hand 
"  Walter  Scott"  at  the  foot  of  the  sketch.  This  little  sketch 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott  created  such  a  sensation  among  art  critics 
and  the  public  that  Maclise,  not  without  great  reluctance  and 
diffidence  on  his  part,  was  induced  by  his  friends  to  open  an 
atelier  in  Patrick  Street. 

It  is  related  of  Barry,  that  when  a  mere  boy  he  performed  a 
journey  from  Cork  to  Dublin  on  foot,  with  his  first  picture 
— the  Conversion  of  the  Pagans  by  St.  Patrick.  It  was  placed 
in  a  remote  corner  of  one  of  the  exhibition  rooms,  where  it 
was  unlikely  that  any  eye  would  rest  upon  it.  It  did  not, 
however,  escape  the  observation  of  the  great  Edmund  Burke. 
He  inquired  of  the  secretary  the  name  of  the  painter.  "  I 
don't  know,"  said  that  gentleman,  "but  it  was  brought  here 
by  that  little  boy,"  pointing  to  Barry,  who  was  modestly  stand- 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART. 


ing  near  his  work.  "  Where  did  you  get  this  picture,  my 
boy  ?"  said  Burke  ;  "  who  painted  it  ?"  "  It  is  mine  !"  said 
the  boy  ;  "  I  painted  it."  "  Oh,  that  is  impossible  !"  said 
Burke,  glancing  at  the  poorly  clad  youth.  It  is  needless  to 
add  how  well  Burke  befriended  him,  and  lifted  him  into  fame. 

This  discovery  of  power  takes  place  in  the  intellectual  de- 
velopment of  each  life.  I  remember  hearing  a  person  who 
had  a  very  remarkable  voice  describe  how  first  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  "  gift"  arose.  Her  mother  had  taken  her  to  hear 
some  celebrated  singer,  and  the  young  girl,  when  she  returned 
home,  imagined  that  her  voice  reached  as  high  a  note  as  the 
celebrated  singer's.  It  was  even  so,  and  a  course  of  training 
soon  developed  the  glorious  gift. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  consider  some  turning-points  in  the 
history  of  science  and  scientific  men.  Our  first  example, 
Blaise  Pascal,  belongs  to  the  provinces  both  of  literature  and 
science. 

The  name  of  Blaise  Pascal  is  one  of  the  purest  and  loftiest 
of  the  great  names  of  France,  or,  we  should  rather  say,  of  the 
human  race.  He  lived  during  the  time  of  the  revolution  in 
England,  in  which  time  a  corrupt  religion  and  a  polluted 
court  were  paving  the  way  for  a  far  more  terrible  revolution 
in  France.  He  was  born  at  Clermont,  in  Auvergne.  From 
his  earliest  years  the  child  Blaise  exhibited  a  precocity  which 
was  extraordinary,  and  even  unnatural  in  one  so  young,  and 
which  his  father  had  the  good  sense  to  check  and  discourage. 
He  would  never  permit  him  to  be  overtasked,  and  always  set 
him  lessons  which  the  child  would  perceive  at  once  were 
within  the  limits  of  his  capacity.  He  would  not  allow  him  to 
begin  Latin  till  he  was  twelve  years  old,  but  nevertheless  his 
father  would  talk  to  him  about  the  principles  of  language, 
which  the  marvelous  boy  easily  comprehended,  and  was  fully 
acquainted  with  the  nature  of  grammar  before  he  began  to 


!68  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

learn  a  language.  When  he  was  only  twelve  years  old  an  in- 
cident happened  which  fully  showed  the  bent  of  his  mind. 
He  noticed,  as  nearly  every  other  child  does,  that  glass  when 
struck  gave  forth  a  long  vibrating  sound,  but  that  when  once 
the  hand  was  laid  upon  the  glass  the  sound  ceased.  The  little 
philosopher  was  determined  to  find  out  the  reason  of  this,  and 
puzzled  over  it  and  tried  a  number  of  experiments,  and  at 
last  produced  almost  a  regular  little  treatise  upon  the  subject. 
His  father  was  fond  of  making  scientific  experiments,  which 
the  boy  used  to  watch  with  the  utmost  delight,  and  was  never 
satisfied  unless  he  understood  the  reason  of  every  thing. 
Nevertheless,  the  wise  parent  thought  that  at  his  tender  years 
the  exact  sciences  might  prove  too  severe  a  study  for  him, 
and  said  that  he  should  learn  Latin  first  and  mathematics  aft- 
erward. Blaise  was  very  curious  about  this  forbidden  pur- 
suit. At  least  he  might  ask  his  father  what  mathematics  were. 
Something  was  said  about  geometry.  "  Geometry,"  curtly  an- 
swered his  father,  "  is  the  science  which  teaches  the  method 
of  making  exact  figures,  and  of  finding  out  the  proportions  they 
bear  to  each  other."  And  having  given  this  definition,  he  told 
him  not  to  think  or  talk  any  more  about  it.  Innate  genius, 
however,  will  always  find  its  way.  If  he  must  do  his  Latin  in 
school-hours,  he  certainly  may  amuse  himself  as  he  likes  in 
his  play-hours.  In  his  acute  little  brain  the  child  puzzled 
over  what  his  father  had  said.  He  sat  down  in  a  large  room, 
all  alone,  with  a  piece  of  charcoal,  and  tried  to  draw  exact 
circles  and  triangles,  and  to  find  out  in  what  relations  they 
could  stand  to  each  other.  So  carefully  were  scientific  books 
kept  out  of  his  sight,  that  he  was  not  acquainted  with  any 
technical  terms.  The  circle  he  called  a  round,  and  the  straight 
line  he  called  a  bar.  Things  went  on  thus  for  some  time ; 
the  child  was  mastering,  or  rather  discovering  for  himself  those 
mathematical  elements  which  all  other  boys  learn  from  books 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART. 


with  an  infinite  deal  of  trouble.  One  day  his  father  entered 
the  room  where  his  son  was  so  engaged,  and  so  intent  upon 
his  investigations  that  he  was  not  aware  of  his  father's  pres- 
ence. His  father  asked  him  what  he  was  doing.  The  son 
answered  that  he  was  trying  to  make  out  such  and  such  a 
thing,  mentioning  the  mathematical  truth  enunciated  in  the 
thirty-second  proposition  of  the  first  book  of  Euclid.  "  And 
what  made  you  think  of  that?"  said  his  father.  "My  having 
found  out  this,"  was  the  answer;  and  then  he  mentioned  an 
earlier  truth  in  Euclid.  And  so  the  boy  Blaise  went  gradually 
backward,  till  he  came  to  the  definitions  and  axioms  out  of 
which  all  geometry  is  elaborated.  The  happy  father  was 
transported  with  joy  at  this  proof  of  his  son's  genius,  but 
without  saying  a  word  left  the  house  that  he  might  consult 
with  a  friend  what  had  best  be  done.  It  was  agreed  that  no 
irksome  restraint  should  be  placed  upon  his  mathematical 
studies,  and  a  Euclid  was  given  to  him  that  he  might  amuse 
himself  with  it  in  his  play  hours. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  his  progress  in  science  was 
truly  marvelous.  When  he  was  only  sixteen  years  old  he 
produced  a  tractate  on  Conic  Sections,  which  Descartes,  the 
greatest  philosopher  of  his  age,  read  with  admiration,  and 
could  scarcely  believe  that  it  had  been  written  by  one  so  young. 
At  nineteen  he  invented  the  celebrated  arithmetical  machine  ; 
and  at  six-and-twenty  he  had  completed  those  brilliant  experi- 
ments on  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere  which  will  always  as- 
sociate his  name  with  Torricelli  and  Boyle.  These  experi- 
ments and  his  mathematical  works  made  him  be  regarded  as 
one  of  the  greatest  philosophers  of  the  age. 

Several  very  interesting  moments  in  the  life  of  Pascal  may 
be  mentioned  in  connection  with  his  intellectual  and  spiritual 
history.  One  day,  when  he  was  visiting  his  sister  Jacqueline, 
a  sermon  -bell  was  heard  to  toll.  His  sister  went  into  the 

H 


I  yo  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

church,  and  her  brother  also  stole  into  it  by  another  door.  It 
so  happened  that  the  subject  of  the  preacher's  discourse  was 
the  commencement  of  the  Christian  life.  He  showed  how 
well  -  disposed  persons,  by  merely  entangling  themselves  in 
worldly  ties,  put  obstacles  in  the  way  of  their  salvation,  and 
so  run  as  to  miss  the  prize  of  their  heavenly  calling.  Pascal 
thought  this  teaching  exactly  met  his  own  case,  and  took  it  to 
himself  as  a  warning  sent  by  God.  He  had  also  had  another 
and  a  more  terrible  warning,  in  a  narrow  escape  from  a  fright- 
ful death.  One  day  he  was  going  in  a  carriage  with  four  horses 
to  Neuilly.  Several  of  his  friends  were  with  him :  it  was  a 
holiday,  and  there  was  to  be  a  gay  promenade  upon  the  bridge. 
The  bridge  was  very  lofty,  and  a  portion  of  it  was  unprotected 
by  any  parapet.  At  this  part  of  the  bridge  the  two  leaders 
became  restive,  took  the  bit  in  their  teeth,  and,  dashing  aside, 
plunged  over  the  bridge  into  the  Seine.  Providentially,  the 
traces  snapped,  and  the  carriage  was  left  firm,  standing  upon 
the  very  edge.  The  feeble  form  of  Pascal  was  ill  adapted  to 
stand  such  a  shock.  He  immediately  fainted,  and  it  was  some 
time  before  he  revived.  The  event  itself  made  a  deep  and 
lasting  impression  upon  his  mind.  In  one  respect  this  was 
curiously  manifested.  He  would  be  haunted  with  the  idea 
that  danger  was  frequently  threatening  him  on  the  left  side — 
the  side  nearest  to  the  danger  on  this  occasion — that  there 
lay  a  deep  chasm  in  this  direction.  Pascal  seems  to  allude 
to  this  in  a  passage  where  he  is  speaking  of  the  imagination, 
and  the  vanity  of  man  in  his  subjection  to  it.  He  says  :  "The 
greatest  philosopher  in  the  world,  on  a  plank  wider  than  the 
pathway  which  he  takes  up  in  his  ordinary  walk,  if  there  should 
be  a  precipice  beneath,  although  his  reason  convinces  him  of 
his  safety,  will  be  entirely  overcome  by  his  imagination.  Many 
could  not  even  endure  the  thought  of  walking  across  such  a 
plank  without  blanching  and  agitation." 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART.  171 

Once  Pascal  had  a  remarkable  conversation  with  a  number 
of  his  friends  on  the  plan  of  a  certain  work  which  he  intended 
to  write.  He  gave  the  name  of  his  undertaking,  opened  his 
plans,  and  explained  the  order  and  connection  which  he  in- 
tended to  pursue.  Those  who  heard  this  conversation,  and 
who  were  some  of  the  most  competent  judges  in  Europe,  said 
they  never  heard  a  more  beautiful  address,  or  one  more  pow- 
erful, affecting,  and  convincing.  Pascal  was  two  or  three 
hours  in  explaining  his  design,  and  the  listeners  formed  the 
most  exalted  idea  of  what  such  a  work  would  be.  Afterward 
several  of  them  put  together  a  sketch  of  this  conversation,  and 
one  of  them  published  a  short  account.  He  intended  that 
this  work  should  be  a  great  apology  for  revealed  religion.  It 
was  to  set  forth  the  fundamental  principles  of  religion,  to  prove 
the  existence  of  God,  and  show  the  evidences  of  Christianity. 
To  accomplish  this  work  he  asked  ten  years  of  health  and 
leisure.  Such  a  work  was  never  produced,  but  after  his  death 
a  variety  of  papers  were  found  which  showed  that  he  had  been 
working  with  a  view  to  it.  These  detached  fragments  of  a 
vast  design  have  come  down  to  us  under  the  title  of  the 
"  Thoughts  (Pense'es)  of  Pascal."  It  seems  that  the  great 
writer  did  not  even  use  a  commonplace  book,  but  when,  after 
deep  meditation,  some  startling  thought  occurred  to  him,  he 
would  jot  it  down  on  any  chance  piece  of  paper,  the  back  of 
an  old  letter  or  any  other  scrap.  These  he  would  tie  up  in 
bundles,  or  string  them  together  on  a  file,  perhaps  waiting  for 
the  season  of  good  health,  which  never  came.  "  It  is  a  won- 
der that  the  'Pensees  of  Pascal'  have  come  down  to  us  at  all. 
Never,  surely,  was  so  precious  a  freight  committed  to  so  crazy 
a  bark." 

Curious  points  of  "moments"  in  scientific  history  constantly 
recur.  There  is  an  odd  story  connected  with  the  discovery 
of  the  stocking-frame  to  which  Manchester  owes  so  much.  It 


172  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

is  said  that  one  Master  William  Lee,  a  parson  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  being  enamored  of  a  lady,  found  to  his  mortification 
that  she  gave  much  more  attention  to  her  knitting  than  to  his 
conversation  ;  in  revenge  for  which  he  determined  to  pro- 
duce an  instrument  which  should  do  away  with  the  necessity 
of  working  by  hand.  In  this  he  succeeded,  but  became  so 
absorbed  in  his  invention  that  he  is  supposed  to  have  quite 
forgotten  the  lady.  The  invention  was  important  enough,  but 
the  inventor's  end  was  sad.  Queen  Elizabeth  would  only  give 
him  a  patent  for  silk  stockings,  so  he  carried  his  invention 
abroad,  where  he  died  of  a  broken  heart.  Sir  William  Thom- 
son, in  his  recent  address  at  Edinburgh,  discussed  a  wonderful 
epoch  in  the  life  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  Newton  had  satisfied 
himself  that  a  force,  following  the  same  law  of  variation  with 
the  inverse  square  of  the  distance,  urges  the  moon  toward  the 
earth.  He  found  reason,  however,  to  doubt  his  conclusions. 
He  compared  the  magnitude  of  the  force  on  the  moon  with 
the  theoretic  force  of  gravitation  on  a  heavy  body  of  equal 
mass  at  the  earth's  surface,  and  he  saw  a  great  discrepancy, 
which  induced  him  to  keep  back  his  discovery  for  many  years. 
He  heard  one  day  a  paper  upon  geodesic  measurements  read 
by  Picard  before  the  Royal  Society,  which  pointed  out  to  his 
mind  a  serious  error  in  the  preconceived  estimate  of  the  earth's 
radius.  This  induced  him  to  think  that  his  conclusions  had 
been  probably,  after  all,  correct.  We  are  told  that  on  going 
home  to  resume  his  calculations  he  felt  so  agitated  that  he 
handed  over  to  a  friend  the  work  of  arithmetical  calculation. 
The  result  was  the  verification  of  the  law  in  the  instance  of 
the  moon's  orbit.  Some  of  Sir  William  Thomson's  own  dis- 
coveries in  electrical  science,  such  as  of  the  galvanometer, 
are  probably  all  scientific  epochs,  although  it  may  be  too  ear- 
ly to  determine  the  exact  value  of  them.  There  is  something 
very  interesting  in  looking  at  the  last  days  of  eminent  men  of 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART. 


science  —  how  they  look  forward  to  perfecting  the  science  of 
earth  in  the  science  of  Heaven.  In  Smeaton  of  the  Eddy- 
stone's  last  illness,  a  very  bright  moon  shone  full  into  his  sick- 
room. Fixing  his  eyes  upon  it,  he  said,  "  How  often  have  I 
looked  up  to  it  with  inquiry  and  wonder,  and  thought  of  the 
period  when  I  shall  have  the  vast  and  privileged  views  of  a 
hereafter,  and  all  will  be  comprehension  and  pleasure  !" 

There  are  some  "  moments"  of  especial  interest  in  the  ca- 
reer of  Sir  Charles  Bell.  The  greatest  of  these  was  unques- 
tionably the  promulgation  of  his  discoveries  in  the  nervous 
system.  These,  with  the  discoveries  of  Dr.  Marshall  Hall  in 
the  same  direction,  have  been  the  greatest  achievements  of 
our  age  in  this  branch  of  medical  investigation.  It  is  claimed 
by  his  editor,  on  the  great  authority  of  Miiller,  the  physiologist, 
that  his  discoveries  are  as  important  as  that  of  the  circulation 
of  the  blood.  His  wife  tells  us  how  he  placed  sheets  of  pa- 
per one  over  the  other  to  show  how  the  nerves  increased  in 
complexity  by  every  superadded  function,  until,  from  the  first 
necessary  or  original  act,  they  came  to  the  grand  object  of 
man's  perfection  in  voice  and  expression.  An  account  of  his 
discoveries  in  the  nervous  system  is  now  contained  in  the 
later  editions  of  his  Bridgewater  Treatise.  The  writing  of  this 
treatise,  "  On  the  Hand,"  was  another  epoch  in  Bell's  career. 
The  result  was  that  his  mind  was  thoroughly  saturated  with 
the  argument  for  design.  It  overflowed  in  his  conversations, 
his  letters,  his  addresses  to  the  British  Association.  Once  he 
said  that  he  should  like  to  show  men  of  science  how  God  Al- 
mighty made  ropes  and  arches,  and  other  things  which  they 
attempted  to  do.  In  "  The  Hand"  he  concludes  :  "  Reasons 
accumulate  at  every  step  for  a  higher  estimate  of  the  living 
soul,  and  give  us  assurance  that  its  condition  is  the  final  ob- 
ject and  end  of  all  this  machinery  and  of  their  successive  rev- 
olutions." We  doubt  not  but  Sir  Charles  Bell  would  have 


174 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


added  that  there  were  at  least  two  other  epochs  in  his  life  of 
tremendous  importance  to  himself — the  time  when  he  got 
married  and  the  time  when  he  commenced  fly-fishing.  The 
wife  was  the  sister  of  his  brother's  wife,  and  it  is  touching  to 
see  how  intensely  he  lived  in  the  affections  of  the  family  group 
around  him.  We  would  willingly  have  some  more  of  his  let- 
ters to  his  wife  both  before  and  after  marriage.  "I  see  a 
God  in  every  thing,  my  love,"  he  writes  to  his  fiancee ;  "it  is 
the  habit  of  my  mind.  Do  you  think  I  could  have  been  em- 
ployed as  I  have  been  without  contemplating  the  Architect  ? 
There  I  am  an  enthusiast."  He  took  to  fly-fishing  because 
he  felt  his  intense  need  of  the  country ;  and  when  he  was  in 
the  country  he  felt  the  need  of  some  object  to  occupy  his 
mind.  Thus  he  gleefully  writes :  "  I  have  got  an  order  for 
Lord  Cowper's  water  at  Panshanger,  which  is  a.  sweet  valley 
with  a  pretty  running  water.  The  trout  are  as  large  as  young 
salmon,  and  give  me  great  sport.  These  English  parks  are, 
as  you  well  know,  the  great  ornaments  of  England.  They 
afford  solitude  and  picturesque  beauties.  We  make  our  tem- 
porary home  in  some  adjoining  village  inn.  These  inns  have 
every  comfort  in  a  small  way.  Without  these  little  expeditions 
I  am  quite  certain  that  I  could  not  live  in  London."  Sir 
Charles  had  found  out  at  least  one  simple  secret  of  happiness. 
We  can  very  well  understand  how,  when  he  had  written  any 
thing  particularly  good  in  his  book  "  On  the  Hand,"  it  was 
after  a  day's  quiet  fishing.  "That  varying  darkness  of  the 
brown  rushing  waters,  the  pools,  the  rocks,  the  fantastic  trees 
— go  round  the  world,  you  shall  not  see  these  unless  you  have 
a  fishing-rod  in  your  hand."  It  is  curious  in  looking  through 
the  biographies  of  Bell,  that  by  M.  Ame'dee  Pichot,  and  the 
autobiography  supplied  by  his  own  letters,  to  see  how  at  these 
quiet  resting-places  he  made  one  step  after  another  in  his  in- 
tellectual advance. 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART.  175 

Let  us  look  at  a  companion  picture,  at  the  life  of  Goodsir 
the  anatomist,  abridging  our  account  from  that  magnificent 
work  of  Dr.  Lonsdale's,  the  "  Life  and  Remains  of  Goodsir." 
We  especially  look  at  his  later  days. 

"  To  avoid  visitors  he  went  to  bed  at  8:30  P.M.,  and  rose 
before  5  A.M. ;  in  this  way  he  got  five  hours'  work  done  be- 
fore Edinburgh  had  breakfasted.  He  lived  in  rigid  simplic- 
ity, and  did  nearly  every  thing  for  himself;  the  sofa  of  the 
day  became  his  bed  of  the  night,  so  that  he  slept  amid  his 
papers  and  special  preparations,  and  could  dress  or  turn  to 
work  at  any  time  without  the  fear  of  intruding  domestics. 

"  He  was  in  the  habit  of  receiving  letters  from  every  man 
of  note  in  anatomy  and  the  natural  sciences  in  Europe.  He 
was  viewed  in  an  amiable  light  by  all  of  them,  and  not  a  few 
showed  him  cordial  friendship,  if  not  the  most  confidential  in- 
timacy. Considering  his  reluctance  to  the  epistolary  form  of 
writing — for  he  was  a  much  worse  example  than  Talleyrand 
in  the  way  of  putting  off  his  replies  from  day  to  day  and 
month  to  month — his  correspondence  is  strikingly  curious,  as 
coming  from  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men — e.  g.,  Canongate 
artisans,  country  surgeons,  English  and  Irish  naturalists,  and 
Scotch  noblemen. 

"  One  writes  of  him : '  His  public  teachings  proved  the  worth 
of  his  religious  principles ;  notwithstanding  my  previous  knowl- 
edge of  him,  it  needed  the  involuntary  utterances  of  a  death- 
bed to  show  me  all  the  simplicity  of  mind  and  godly  sincerity 
of  heart  with  which  those  principles  had  been  fostered.  As 
he  had  been  an  interpreter  of  God's  works,  he  had  been  also 
a  diligent  student  of  his  revealed  Word,  and  a  truly  humble 
Christian.' 

"  When  the  pleasure  of  meeting  his  class  was  denied  him, 
he  often  spoke  of  his  pupils ;  and,  as  he  had  conscientiously 
labored  to  advance  their  studies,  persuaded  himself  that  some 


176  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

of  them  would  live  to  interpret  his  oral  teachings  and  extend 
the  knowledge  of  his  philosophical  views  to  another  genera- 
tion. The  anticipation  that  his  finished  labors  would  stand 
the  test  of  time,  and  that  his  outlined  work  would  be  filled  up 
and  colored  by  those  he  had  taught  and  indoctrinated  so  well, 
were  like  pleasant  breathings,  if  not  anaesthetic  repose,  to  the 
Goodsir  couch,  and  could  not  fail  to  lend  a  halo  to  the  hopes 
of  a  reputation  beyond  the  grave. 

"  As  evidences  of  his  philosophic,  religious  and  speculative 
leanings  to  the  very  last,  he  had  placed  on  a  table  beside  his 
bed  a  large  folio  copy  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  works,  in  five 
volumes,  the  Bible,  and  a  work  on  Crystallography,  with  a  tray 
of  models  to  illustrate  the  intended  publication  of  his  views 
of  organic  form  on  a  triangular  basis — that  magnum  opus  of 
his  latter-day  ideal  life. 

"  The  youthful  companions — John  Goodsir  and  Edward 
Forbes — who  had  sat  on  the  same  benches  as  students,  and 
had  fraternized  so  well  in  natural-history  research,  and  strug- 
gled up  the  arduous  steep  of  science  to  professional  eminence 
and  European  fame,  came  to  breathe  their  last  under  the  same 
roof.  And  as  if  the  ties  of  life  and  love  were  to  find  a  fitting 
response  in  death,  the  remains  of  John  Goodsir  are  interred 
next  to  the  grave  of  Edward  Forbes,  in  the  Dean  Cemetery 
of  Edinburgh.  A  granite  obelisk  marks  the  grave.  The  Rev. 
J.  T.  Goodsir  has  had  the  spiral  curved  line  engraved  on  one 
side  of  the  obelisk,  to  exemplify  the  feeling  pervading  the  pro- 
fessor's mind  on  the  subject  of  organic  growth — the  spiral  be- 
ing symbolic  of  the  law  of  the  vital  force,  developed  in  Good- 
sir's  lectures. 

"  A  writer  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  says  :  '  Since  the  days 
of  John  Hunter,  no  greater  master  of  anatomical  science,  no 
keener  investigator  of  phenomena,  no  more  comprehensive 
grasper  of  generalizations,  no  clearer  or  more  effective  expos- 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND   ART.  177 

itor  ever  dedicated  himself  to  the  great  subject  of  anatomy, 
human  and  comparative,  than  John  Goodsir.  .  .  .'  The  only 
regret  will  be  that  he  has  left  so  few  records  of  his  discoveries 
and  conclusions ;  that  in  the  keenness  of  his  pursuit  after 
scientific  truth  he  left  himself  so  little  time  to  gather  up  and 
embody  in  a  lasting  form  his  numerous  incidental  felicities 
of  investigation  and  doctrine.  But  enough,  and  more  than 
enough,  will  always  remain  to  prove  the  brightness  of  his  in- 
telligence, the  justness  of  his  reasoning,  and  the  philosophic 
comprehensiveness  of  his  generalizations.  ...  No  subject, 
however  remotely  connected  with  his  favorite  one,  but  was 
perfectly  known  to  him.  When,  in  1854,  he  suddenly  under- 
took the  task  of  lecturing  on  natural  history  for  his  deceased 
friend  Edward  Forbes,  he  was  found  a  master,  at  every  point, 
in  the  science  which  was  only  accessory  to  his  own. 

" '  It  is  indeed  impossible  to  estimate  aright  the  loss  which 
scientific  knowledge  and  academic  education  sustain  through 
such  a  death  as  his.  Let  us  hope  that  the  generous  contagion 
of  his  teaching  and  the  lustre  of  his  example  will  arouse  in 
some  worthy  disciple  the  masculine  enthusiasm,  the  noble 
candor,  and  the  chivalrous  self-devotion  which  are  buried  in 
the  too  early  grave  of  John  Goodsir.' 

"  His  anatomical  lectures  constituted  a  great  fact  in  his  his- 
tory both  as  a  man  and  a  teacher.  No  one  in  Britain  seems 
to  have  taken  so  wide  a  field  for  survey,  or  marshaled  so 
many  facts  for  anatomical  tabulation  and  synthesis.  Good- 
sir's  place  on  the  historical  tablet  should  be  measured  not 
only  by  his  published  writings,  but  by  his  museum  creation 
and  work,  and  his  professional  teachings  of  thousands  of  men, 
and  through  them  the  germinating  ideas  he  has  scattered 
broadcast  over  the  world  of  medicine.  He  not  only  taught 
in  his  own  way,  but  inspired  others  by  his  teachings.  He  not 
only  gave  the  anatomical  data  or  the  facts,  but  illuminated 

H  2 


I78  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

these  facts  by  various  lights  and  interpretations,  as  if  reveal- 
ing fresh  facets  on  the  crystal,  and  therefrom  educing  a  fresh 
polarization. 

"  There  was  no  moderation  in  Goodsir's  working,  and  not 
even  the  relaxation  which  change  of  pursuit  favors  to  a  cer- 
tain extent.  It  was  daily,  dogged,  downright  labor ;  he  used 
his  body  as  if  it  were  a  machine,  and  his  brain  as  if  nervous 
matter  could  be  supplied  as  readily  as  English  coal  to  a  fur- 
nace. He  exhibited  in  his  own  person  what  is  aptly  desig- 
nated the  wear  and  tear  of  life,  with  every  nerve  in  full  ten- 
sion as  if  for  concert  pitch.  Scores  of  friends  advised  him, 
personally  and  by  letter,  to  spare  his  energies ;  but  Goodsir, 
prepared  to  '  shun  delights  and  live  laborious  days,'  took  no 
heed  of  the  morrow  of  life  ;  now  and  onward  and  forever  re- 
flected his  belief.  He  seemed  buoyed  up  with  a  passionate 
fervor  that  would  brook  no  delay  and  no  temporizing  with  its 
aim  and  purpose.  Incessant  work,  continued  for  a  series  of 
years,  led  to  the  usual  result — impaired  health,  functional  dis- 
turbance, and  pathological  change.  To  escape  from  the  dis- 
secting-rooms to  the  quiet  of  country  life,  and  '  to  babble  of 
green  fields '  is  the  great  desideratum  of  every  anatomist,  and 
no  men  enjoy  their  holidays  more  thoroughly ;  but  Goodsir 
scarcely  ever  realized  what  relaxation  was.  When  he  spent 
a  summer  abroad,  it  was  not  by  the  banks  of  Lago  Maggiore, 
or  sipping  the  waters  of  Brunnen,  but  in  the  museums  of  Ber- 
lin and  Vienna.  On  his  return  from  a  Continental  trip,  when 
asked  by  a  friend  how  he  enjoyed  his  autumnal  holidays, 
Goodsir,  with  great  truth  and  simple-mindedness,  replied, 
'  Oh  !  very  much  indeed.  I  spent  six  hours  a  day  in  the  mu- 
seums with  Miiller,  Hyrtl,  or  Kolliker.'  Change  and  fancy 
soon  palled  on  the  Goodsir  fancy ;  there  was  nothing  so 
tempting  to  him  as  the  investigation  of  organisms,  nothing 
so  captivating  as  the  paths  of  discovery  in  natural  history." 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART.  179 

As  an  example  of  the  life  of  a  man  of  science  we  will  take 
one  who  is  not,  indeed,  of  the  very  highest  order  in  science, 
but  one  eminently  known  in  his  day,  and  whose  life  was  fruit- 
ful in  results — Professor  Henslow. 

Endowed  with  great  practical  ability  and  earnestness  of 
purpose,  when  placed  amid  ordinary  duties,  he  achieved  an 
extraordinary  degree  of  success.  As  a  public  teacher  in  his 
university  he  succeeded  in  rendering  popular  an  unattractive 
pursuit,  and  as  a  clergyman  amid  an  ignorant  and  debased 
population  he  was  enabled  to  inform  his  people  with  a  meas- 
ure of  intellectual  and  religious  light.  At  Cambridge  Mr. 
Henslow  took  a  fair  place  among  the  wranglers,  and  during 
his  undergraduate  course  was  noted  for  his  devotion  to  natu- 
ral science,  which  led,  a  year  after  his  inception,  to  his  being 
elected  professor  of  mineralogy.  He  so  distinguished  him- 
self by  his  lucid  and  vivid  style  as  to  become  one  of  the  very 
best  lecturers  of  the  day.  As  a  naturalist  he  visited  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  the  Isle  of  Man,  Anglesea,  and  other  places,  and 
thoroughly  explored  Cambridgeshire ;  and  his  biographer  re- 
lates with  enthusiasm  that  he  was  so  fortunate  as  to  discover 
some  fresh-water  bivalve  shells  which  had  previously  been  ig- 
norantly  confounded  with  the  young  of  the  common  Cyclas 
cornea,  one  of  which  has  immortalized  his  name  by  receiving 
the  title  of  Henslowiana.  Three  years  later  he  was  made 
professor  of  botany.  Here  the  practical  bent  of  his  mind 
soon  usefully  manifested  itself.  A  worthless  botanical  gar- 
den was  extended  and  brought  to  a  state  of  the  highest  effi- 
ciency, and  a  neglected  museum  became  a  very  perfect  and 
valuable  collection.  His  lecture-room  soon  began  to  fill  in  a 
very  gratifying  manner.  In  the  summer-time  he  and  his  pu- 
pils would  fill  a  coach-and-four  and  make  an  incursion  upon 
some  obscure  village  in  the  Fens,  where  their  boxes  and  im- 
plements excited  great  astonishment  in  the  bucolic  mind. 


l8o  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

About  his  thirtieth  year  he  married  and  was  ordained.  Once 
a  week  he  threw  open  his  house  to  undergraduate  friends  and 
others — a  step  peculiarly  beneficial,  as  a  little  general  society 
is  a  great  desideratum  for  young  men  in  a  university  town. 
His  character  at  this  time  is  thus  very  favorably  sketched  by 
his  distinguished  pupil,  Mr.  Darwin :  "  Nothing  could  be  more 
simple,  cordial,  and  unpretending  than  the  encouragement 
which  he  afforded  to  all  young  naturalists.  I  soon  became 
intimate  with  him,  for  he  had  a  remarkable  power  of  making 
the  young  feel  completely  at  ease  with  him  ;  though  we  were 
all  awe-struck  at  the  amount  of  his  knowledge.  Before  I  saw 
him,  I  heard  one  young  man  sum  up  his  attainments  by  sim- 
ply saying  that  he  knew  every  thing.  When  I  reflect  how 
immediately  we  felt  at  perfect  ease  with  a  man  older  and  in 
every  way  so  immensely  our  superior,  I  think  it  was  as  much 
owing  to  the  transparent  sincerity  of  his  character  as  to  his 
kindness  of  heart ;  and,  perhaps,  even  still  more  to  a  highly 
remarkable  absence  in  him  of  all  self-consciousness." 

Probably  as  a  reward  for  his  political  services,  he  was  pro- 
moted by  the  crown  to  the  valuable  living  of  Hitcham,  in 
Suffolk,  worth  upward  of  ^"1000  a  year.  The  parish  was  a 
large  one,  and  he  came  to  the  wise  conclusion  that  he  had 
better  give  up  the  university  and  attend  to  it  exclusively. 
His  new  sphere  was  indeed  one  which  could  give  ample  play 
to  his  perseverance,  courage,  and  healthy  energies.  For  his 
parish  was  a  moral  waste.  The  villagers  were  sunk  to  the 
lowest  depths  of  moral  and  physical  debasement.  The  parish 
church  was  empty,  and  the  parish  rates  enormous.  The  peo- 
ple were  wanting  in  the  most  common  decencies  and  the  most 
elementary  knowledge — idle,  immoral,  criminal,  to  the  last  de- 
gree. To  improve  this  wretched  state  of  things  was  the  new 
rector's  earnest  endeavor,  in  which  he  received  very  scanty 
help,  for  the  farmers,  only  one  remove  above  their  laborers, 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND   ART.  jgi 

opposed  him  with  ignorant  and  unreasoning  stolidity.  His 
first  effort  was  to  arouse  their  dormant  intellectual  faculties. 
He  determined  to  conciliate  them  by  amusements.  He  got 
up  a  cricket-club  and  gave  them  an  exhibition  of  fireworks. 
He  wrote  and  published  a  set  of  "  Letters  to  the  Farmers  of 
Suffolk,"  in  which  his  scientific  knowledge  proved  of  much 
practical  use.  He  earnestly  espoused  the  allotment  system, 
or  establishment  of  a  Spade  Tenantry.  And  in  his  own  parish 
he  carried  out  the  system  in  spite  of  a  most  formidable  oppo- 
sition on  the  part  of  the  farmers,  his  principal  parishioners. 
He  introduced  the  study  of  botany  into  the  village  school,  and 
any  child  might  be  promoted  into  the  botanical  class  who 
could  spell  such  portentous  words  as  "  dicotyledons,"  "  angio- 
spermous,"  "thalamifloral."  This  teaching  of  botany  as  an 
educational  measure  was  taken  up  by  the  Committee  of  Coun- 
cil on  Education,  and  botany  has  since  been  taught  in  other 
schools,  and  an  inspector  of  schools  reports  very  favorably  of 
the  Hitcham  plan.  Another  means  by  which  Professor  Hens- 
low  sought  to  arouse  the  dormant  intelligence  of  his  people 
was  by  a  Recreation  Fund,  and  annual  visits  to  remarkable 
places,  among  which  was  a  visit  to  the  Great  Exhibition  of 
1851,  and  another  to  Cambridge,  which  was  planned  and  man. 
aged  with  especial  solicitude.  He  spoke  of  a  special  occasion 
for  prayer  shortly  previous  to  his  getting  the  crown  living  of 
Hitcham.  It  had  been  under  consideration  whether  he  should 
not  be  appointed  to  the  See  of  Norwich,  the  bishopric  of  which 
was  then  vacant,  instead  of  to  any  lower  preferment  in  the 
Church.  On  hearing  this,  of  which  he  had  certain  informa- 
tion from  a  friend,  he  retired  into  his  chamber,  and  fervently, 
on  his  knees,  prayed  for  some  time  that  he  might  never  be 
called  to  any  such  high  office,  for  the  duties  of  which  he  felt 
himself  quite  unfit,  and  that  he  might  not  be  tempted  to  ac- 
cept it  if  offered  to  him.  When  he  found  afterward  that  he 


182  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

was  to  have  the  living  of  Hitcham  and  not  the  bishopric,  he 
thanked  God  for  the  issue,  and  regarded  it  as  an  answer  to 
his  prayers. 

Mr.  Henslow's  reputation  as  a  lecturer  stood  so  high  that 
he  was  requested  by  the  late  lamented  Prince  Consort  to  lec- 
ture before  the  junior  branches  of  the  royal  family  at  Buck- 
ingham Palace,  and  we  are  told  that  "  the  same  simple  lan- 
guage and  engaging  demeanor  that  had  proved  irresistible  in 
the  village  won  over  his  royal  audience  to  fixed  attention  and 
eager  desire  for  instruction."  He  attended  the  meeting  of 
the  British  Association  at  Oxford  in  1860,  where  he  was  chair- 
man of  the  Natural  History  Section,  and  was  very  useful  as 
moderator  in  the  exciting  debates  that  took  place  respecting 
Dr.  Darwin's  book.  "Though  I  have  always  expressed  the 
greatest  respect  for  my  friend's  opinions,"  he  wrote  on  one  oc- 
casion, "  I  have  told  himself  that  I  can  not  assent  to  his  specu- 
lations without  seeing  stronger  proofs  than  he  has  yet  pro- 
duced." He  would  object  to  all  scientific  schemes  that  would 
not  allow  for  the  interposition  of  the  Almighty.  In  his  last 
days  he  was  very  much  interested  about  the  subject  of  the 
Celtic  Drift.  In  the  autumn  of  1860  he  went  to  France  to 
examine  the  celebrated  gravel-pits  at  Amiens  and  Abbeville, 
and  wrote  several  letters  in  the  Athentzum,  arguing  against  the 
supposed  great  antiquity  of  these  remains.  He  became,  how- 
ever, very  unsettled  in  his  opinions  on  this  point,  and  at  the 
time  of  his  last  illness  was  preparing  to  lay  his  conclusions 
before  the  Cambridge  Philosophical  Society,  and  it  is  believed 
that  he  had  convinced  himself  of  a  date  not  so  far  back  as 
some  geologists  suppose,  but  long  antecedent  to  that  usually 
attributed  to  man's  existence  on  the  earth. 

The  account  of  his  death  is  very  remarkable :  "No  sooner 
was  he  told  on  Good  Friday  that  he  could  not  live  than  he 
evinced  from  that  moment  an  utter  indifference  to  his  fate. 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND   ART.  183 

He  immediately  rose  superior  to  all  further  desire  for  life,  all 
fear  of  death,  and  all  shrinking  from  what  he  had  to  go  through 
before  death  would  release  him.  In  the  face  of  inevitably  in- 
creasing sufferings,  he  set  himself  to  watch  the  successive 
symptoms  of  approaching  dissolution,  all  of  which  he  desired 
should  be  communicated  to  him  by  his  medical  attendants, 
with  whom  he  discussed  them  as  a  philosopher,  and  without 
the  most  distant  references  to  himself  as  being  the  subject 
of  them.  .  .  .  During  his  whole  illness  he  was  a  model  of 
patience  and  resignation  to  the  Divine  will.  He  prayed  that 
not  a  murmur  might  escape  his  lips.  He  expressed  the  most 
sincere  gratitude  to  the  Almighty  for  his  mercies  to  himself, 
and  placed  his  entire  trust  in  the  Saviour,  with  absolute 
renunciation  of  all  personal  merit.  He  observed,  '  What  a 
blessed  thing  it  is  to  be  a  Christian,  and  a  blessed  thing  for  a 
Christian  to  die !'  He  said  he  had  not  before  his  eyes,  to  his 
utter  astonishment,  that  fear  of  death  which  he  thought  he 
should  have.  He  placed  his  soul  in  the  hands  of  a  righteous 
Creator." 

With  this  might  be  paralleled  the  language  of  William 
Hunter,  the  celebrated  anatomist,  in  his  last  moments  to  his 
friend  Dr.  Combe  :  "  If  I  had  strength  enough  to  hold  a  pen,  I 
would  write  how  easy  and  pleasant  a  thing  it  is  to  die." 

There  are  few  lives  that  are  more  interesting  and  better  re- 
pay the  reading  than  Brunei's.  There  was,  indeed,  a  kind  of 
ill-luck  about  his  undertakings.  The  atmospheric  railway  was 
a  great  failure.  The  broad  gauge  has  succumbed  in  the  battle 
of  the  gauges.  The  Great  Britain  was  stranded,  and  ruined 
the  company.  The  Great  Eastern  had  a  difficulty  in  being 
launched,  and  a  succession  of  misfortunes.  But  these  failures 
were  magnificent  failures — great  in  themselves  and  prophetic 
of  better  things  to  come.  The  Great  Eastern  is  associated 
with  the  cable  between  Great  Britain  and  America,  and  the 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


cable  between  France  and  America.  The  Great  Britain  is 
now  one  of  the  fastest  vessels  on  the  Australian  line.  The 
day  for  atmospheric  railways  is  yet  to  come.  Brunei's  failures 
are  in  things  the  tendency  of  which  is  to  come  right  at  last. 

Brunei  illustrates  the  doctrine  of  Atavism,  the  doctrine  of 
Mr.  Galton  in  reference  to  hereditary  genius.  The  work  by 
which  he  is  chiefly  known  is  the  Thames  Tunnel,  and  that  fa- 
mous shield  by  which  the  works  were  advanced  beneath  the 
river's  bed.  In  that  work  young  Isambard  bore  a  conspicu- 
ous part  ;  his  father  said  that  his  "  vigilance  and  constant  at- 
tendance were  of  great  service."  Of  the  last  ten  days,  young 
Brunei  passed  seven  in  the  tunnel,  allowing  himself  only  three 
and  two-thirds'  hours  of  sleep.  One  day  he  sat  down  with 
nine  friends  to  a  dinner  under  the  Thames.  At  this  time  he 
was  only  twenty-one,  and  his  father  was  intensely  pleased  by 
the  ability  and  presence  of  mind  which  he  displayed.  At  this 
time,  however,  the  works  were  discontinued  for  seven  years, 
owing  to  irruptions  of  the  river.  Sir  Isambard,  who  survived 
to  his  eighty-first  year,  was  permitted  to  witness  the  extraordi- 
nary success  of  his  son.  In  the  same  way  the  great  Stephen- 
son  witnessed  the  wonderful  ability  and  success  of  his  son, 
Robert  Stephenson,  the  engineer. 

Those  who  wish  to  understand  the  magnificent  genius  of 
Brunei  should  take  a  journey  toward  the  Land's  End.  There 
is  no  railway  line  that  possesses  greater  scenic  magnificence 
than  that  through  South  Devon  and  Cornwall.  We  will  take 
no  notice  of  those  dismantled  edifices  which  recall  the  sad 
fortunes  of  the  atmospheric  railway.  Observe  how  magnifi- 
cently the  railway  sweeps  the  coast  line,  piercing  through  the 
projecting  headlands  in  a  series  of  tunnels.  It  comes  be- 
tween the  sea  and  the  pretty  little  town  of  Dawlish,  gracefully 
supported  on  an  Egyptian  bridge.  There  is  a  story  of  a  mis- 
anthropic gentleman  near  Dawlish  who  took  a  house  on  the 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART.  185 

very  edge  of  the  sea  in  order  that  he  might  be  saved  from  all 
commerce  with  human  kind,  but  Brunei  came  with  his  re- 
morseless railway  and  drove  him  to  despair  and  death.  I  be- 
lieve the  ornamentation  of  the  line  was  Brunei's.  It  was  what 
he  especially  delighted  in,  and  he  made  his  own  home  mar- 
velously  beautiful.  Even  the  color  of  the  railway  carriages 
was  a  point  to  which  he  sedulously  attended.  A  few  miles 
from  Teignmouth,  on  the  road  between  Teignmouth  and  Tor- 
quay, is  the  lovely  combe  of  Watcombe,  so  familiar  to  all  tour- 
ists of  the  neighborhood,  where  Brunei  had  purchased  an  es- 
tate, and  had  designed  there  to  erect  a  mansion,  and  there  to 
spend  the  evening  of  his  days.  The  line  soon  skirts  the  edge 
of  Dartmoor.  Few  who  have  passed  it  can  ever  forget  the 
lovely  viaduct  at  Ivybridge.  The  slender  line  of  masonry 
seems  to  span  aerial  space,  in  the  vista  delicate  and  thin, 
while  the  Erne  through  its  wooded  gorge  flows  down  from  the 
moorland,  through  the  railway  arches,  to  the  sea.  As  soon  as 
we  leave  Plymouth  we  have  again  the  stupendous  marvel  of 
the  Royal  Albert  Bridge  at  Saltash.  Many  years  before  its 
erection  Brunei  had  investigated  the  spot,  and  thought  that 
the  estuary  of  the  Tamar  was  much  too  broad  for  any  such 
undertaking.  But  time  had  expanded  the  daring  inventive- 
ness of  his  genius,  and  had  enabled  him  to  accomplish  his 
ambitious  designs.  The  chief  part  of  this  great  work  is  the 
centre  pier,  which  is  out  of  sight  to  the  public,  but  the  main 
feature  of  interest  to  professional  men.  Here  they  found  a 
rock  which  admitted  of  masonry  being  laid  under  a  cylinder 
provided  with  pneumatic  apparatus,  although  the  work  was 
hindered  by  the  necessity  of  having  to  cut  through  a  bed  of 
oysters,  and  staunching  a  fountain  that  burst  from  the  subma- 
rine rock.  The  centre  pier  of  this  famous  bridge  marks  the 
highest  point  of  Brunei's  achievements,  though,  perhaps,  not 
of  his  conceptions.  It  was  opened  by  the  Prince  Consort, 


j86  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

but  he  was  himself  absent  from  the  scene  through  ill-health. 
He  was  permitted  to  make  subsequently  his  first  and  last  vis- 
it to  his  completed  work.  The  Cornish  line  from  the  great 
bridge  westward  affords  continual  examples  of  Brunei's  favor- 
ite timber  viaducts  and  bridges.  Through  a  long  succession 
of  valleys  the  railway  seems  to  bound  from  height  to  height 
on  these  apparently  frail  structures,  which  the  great  architect 
constructed  so  securely,  and  yet  with  comparatively  little  ex- 
pense. Cornwall  is  famous  for  its  picturesque  scenery,  but 
the  railway  which  traverses  the  peninsula  and  makes  it  so 
accessible  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  the 
scene. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Brunei's  great  fame  primarily  arose 
from  want  of  success.  One  of  his  first  efforts  was  to  enter 
into  the  competition  of  designs  for  the  Clifton  Suspension 
Bridge.  Telford,  the  first  engineer  of  the  day,  was  called  in 
as  judge,  and  decided  against  him  and  all  the  other  candi- 
dates ;  he  thought  that  Brunei's  span  was  longer  than  could 
be  employed  with  safety.  Telford  was  asked  to  send  in  a 
plan  of  his  own,  but  his  ultimate  plan  embraced  lofty  towers, 
for  which  there  was  not  sufficient  money.  Eventually  Brunei 
was  made  architect.  On  one  occasion  he  nearly  lost  his  life. 
He  was  crossing  the  river  in  a  basket  slung  from  an  iron  bar, 
and  the  basket  stuck  fast ;  he  was  obliged  to  perform  the  dan- 
gerous feat  of  climbing  from  the  basket  to  the  bar  before  he 
could  be  released.  In  a  few  years  the  funds  were  all  exhaust- 
ed, and  it  was  necessary  that  the  works  should  be  left  incom- 
plete. A  spell  of  ill-luck  seemed  to  hang  about  the  bridge. 
Though  Brunei  took  the  deepest  interest  in  it,  he  never  saw 
it  completed.  Not  till  after  his  death  was  the  bridge  finished, 
partly  as  a  monument  to  his  memory,  and  partly  as  wiping 
away  a  slur  on  the  engineering  ability  of  the  country.  But 
the  fact  is  that  this  unsuccessful  bridge  had  proved  the  archi 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART.  187 

tect  of  the  great  engineer's  fortune.  The  competition  for  the 
Clifton  Bridge  gave  him  his  first  start.  His  son  says,  "  all  his 
subsequent  success  was  traced  by  him  to  this  victory,  which 
he  fought  hard  for,  and  gained  only  by  persevering  struggles." 
His  reputation  made  him  the  first  engineer  of  the  Great  West- 
ern Railway,  often  working  for  twenty  hours  a  day.  One  of 
his  assistants,  indeed,  calls  this  period  "  the  turning-point  of 
his  life."  "  His  vigor  both  of  body  and  mind  were  in  their 
perfection.  His  powers  were  continually  called  forth  by  the 
obstacles  he  had  to  overcome  ;  and  the  result  of  his  examina- 
tions in  the  committee -rooms  placed  him  in  the  very  first 
rank  of  his  profession  for  talents  and  knowledge."  The  fol- 
lowing was  a  very  remarkable  "  moment"  in  his  career,  which 
led  to  an  immense  extension  of  ocean  steam  navigation. 
There  was  one  night  a  business  meeting,  at  Radley's  Hotel, 
of  the  directors  of  the  Great  Western  Railway.  Some  one 
spoke  of  the  enormous  length,  as  it  then  appeared,  of  the  rail- 
way from  London  to  Bristol.  Brunei  exclaimed,  "Why  not 
make  it  longer,  and  have  a  steamboat  to  go  from  Bristol  to 
New  York,  and  call  it  the  Great  Western  ?  "  The  remark  was 
received  as  an  excellent  joke,  but  at  night  Mr.  Brunei  talked 
it  over  with  one  of  the  directors.  This  led  to  the  Great  West- 
ern, and  then  to  the  Great  Britain  and  Great  Eastern.  It 
was  a  daring  achievement  to  build  a  vast  ship  of  iron,  and  to 
fit  her  with  a  screw  propeller.  Brunei  was  the  main  instru- 
ment of  introducing  the  screw  propeller  into  the  mercantile 
navy,  and  of  securing  its  adoption  in  our  fleets. 

Personally  Brunei  was  a  very  interesting  and  remarkable 
character.  The  odd  incident  of  his  swallowing  the  half-sover- 
eign, which  put  his  life  in  danger,  created  a  feeling  of  warm 
personal  interest  in  him.  His  sweet  temper  and  sound  judg- 
ment secured  him  many  attached  friends.  His  industry  was 
prodigious,  and  he  had  a  remarkable  faculty  of  going  without 


!88  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

sleep  for  many  hours.  But,  like  so  many  men  whom  we  have 
had  to  speak  of,  he  seems  to  have  materially  damaged  his 
health  by  his  strenuous,  unresting  employments.  Humanly 
speaking,  his  life  iriight  have  been  lengthened  many  years 
save  for  his  intense  appetite  for  work.  The  difficulties  attend- 
ing the  launch  of  the  Great  Eastern  perhaps  injured  his  health 
more  than  any  thing  else.  He  had  intended  to  go  round  with 
the  ship  to  Weymouth,  but  the  day  before  he  was  seized  with 
paralysis. 

On  looking  back  on  the  careers  of  men  distinguished  in 
art,  literature,  and  science,  there  are  a  few  considerations  to 
be  added.  We  see  at  once  that  it  is  not  by  any  special  event 
or  turning-point  in  life,  but  by  the  whole  tenor  and  work  of 
life,  that  the  value  of  such  men's  lives  must  be  estimated.  It 
was  the  saying  of  the  old  Greek  tragedian  to  call  no  one  hap- 
py before  the  day  of  his  death.  The  saying  doubtless  in- 
volves a  fallacy,  as  the  difference  of  one  day  to  all  the  days 
of  one's  life  can  not  be  of  overwhelming  importance :  one 
happy  day  added  to  disastrous  days,  or  one  disastrous  day 
added  to  happy  days  can  not  materially  vary  the  general  com- 
plexion of  human  existence.  At  the  same  time,  no  day  is  so 
far  a  decisive  turning-point  in  life  that  it  can  altogether  influ- 
ence existence  as  a  whole.  The  day  yields  its  happy  chance, 
or  it  may  altogether  refuse  to  yield  it,  or  may  even  render  it 
disastrously.  But  it  is  the  tendency  of  a  well-ordered,  careful 
life  to  reduce  the  domain  of  chance  to  a  minimum.  Let  the 
scientific  man  diligently  pass  his  life  according  to  the  Baconian 
ideal,  "  in  industrious  observations,  grounded  conclusions,  and 
profitable  inventions  and  discoveries,  and  we  may  be  quite 
sure  that  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  time  when  such  a  man  makes 
his  mark.  The  lessons  taught  by  our  survey  are  the  simple 
lessons  of  thoughtfulness,  activity,  and  perseverance.  Any 
moment  of  success  in  life,  however  brilliant,  passes  away  and 


LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART.  189 

leaves  life  to  its  ordinary  current.     The  course  of  the  stream 
is  left  unaffected  by  the  occasional  eddy.     The  poet  says 

"  Use  gave  me  fame, 

And  fame  again  increasing  gave  me  use." 

After  all,  use  is  the  great  thing,  far  transcending  the  fame. 
The  keenest  delights,  after  all,  such  men  would  tell  us,  are  in 
the  exercise  of  one's  faculties  and  powers,  the  feeling  that 
their  lives  are  well  laid  out  to  the  highest  purposes.  The  de- 
light of  the  artist  in  his  work  is  something  more  than  its 
praises  or  its  prizes.  It  is  in  the  power  of  every  one  of  us  to 
have  the  keenest  pleasure  of  high  endeavors.  Those  who  can 
not  command  success  may  at  least  deserve  it.  Let  no  man 
think  that  his  efforts  are  such  that  some  brilliant  day  will 
come  which  will  crown  them  in  the  sight  of  men.  Let  no  man 
think  that  any  happy  chance  will  do  for  him  what  he  is  quite 
unable  to  do  for  himself.  The  solid  happiness  will  be  in  the 
sense  of  use,  and  in  the  highest  sense  the  great  wages  will  be 

"The  glory  of  going  on  and  not  to  die." 

There  are  a  few  wise  words  of  SchlegePs  with  which  we 
may  not  unfitly  close  this  chapter.  Schlegel  says  :  "  In  ex- 
perimental science,  the  order  between  faith  and  knowledge  is 
exactly  the  same.  In  actual  life,  every  great  enterprise  be- 
gins with  and  takes  its  first  step  in  faith.  In  faith  Columbus, 
compass  in  hand,  and  firmly  relying  on  its  revelations,  trav- 
ersed, in  his  frail  bark,  the  wide  waters  of  an  unknown  ocean. 
In  this  faith  he  discovered  a  new  world,  and  thereby  opened  a 
new  era  in  the  history  of  science  and  of  man.  For  all  his  in- 
quiries, all  his  thirst  and  search  after  information,  all  his  think- 
ing, guessing,  and  supposing,  did  not  as  yet  amount  to  a  com- 
plete knowledge — by  such  means  he  could  not  succeed  in 
working  out  a  full  conviction,  either  for  himself  or  for  others. 
It  was  the  given  fact,  the  unquestionable  proof  of  actual  ex- 
perience, that  first  exalted  his  bold  conception  into  true  and 


190 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


perfect  certainty.  In  a  greater  or  less  degree,  this  is  the  course 
by  which  all  the  great  discoveries  in  science  have  been  made, 
passing  by  a  slow  but  still  advancing  process  of  thought  from 
facts  up  to  knowledge.  And  the  same  character  of  faith  is 
stamped  on  every  great  and  decisive  act,  every  important 
event  in  the  history  of  individuals  and  of  nations."  We  thus 
see  that  it  is  faith  which  makes  and  determines  so  many  of 
the  great  turning-points  in  life. 


SUCCESSFUL  LAWYERS.  191 


CHAPTER  X. 

Successful  Lawyers. 

IT  is  a  happy  circumstance  in  English  history  that  we  might, 
among  successful  lawyers,  enumerate  many  of  the  brightest 
examples  of  probity,  industry,  and  piety.  The  forensic  roll 
includes  many  brilliant  lives,  fertile  in  memorable  incident 
and  in  lessons  of  the  highest  import.  We  think  of  such  judges 
as  the  upright  and  pious  Hale,  the  learned  and  patriotic  Sel- 
den.  Such  a  judge  was  the  truly  pious  and  amiable  Chief- 
Justice  Wilton.  Look  at  what  we  may  call  the  modern  roll 
of  those  who  have  been  in  succession  lord  chief-justices  of 
England — Mansfield,  Kenyon,  Ellenborough,  Tenterden,  Den- 
man,  Campbell — and  each  name  suggests  passages  of  history 
and  life  from  which  much  instruction  has  been  drawn  and 
might  yet  be  derived.  The  roll  of  our  chancellors,  from  the 
pious  and  high-minded  man  who  now  holds  that  position 
downward,  includes  many  memorable  and  beneficent  names.* 
There  are  other  great  lawyers,  whose  names  are  not  so  well 
known  to  the  general  reader,  in  whom  the  highest  departments 
of  law  expand  into  statesmanship — such  as  Lord  Redesdale, 
Sir  William  Grant,  and  Lord  Stowell.  There  is  something 
eminently  instructive  in  such  a  career  as  that  of  Sir  William 
Grant.  He  was  a  Canadian  ex- attorney-general,  who  was 
long  without  a  brief  at  the  English  bar,  until  Pitt  sent  to  con- 
fer with  him  about  the  affairs  of  Canada.  This  was  the  turn- 

*  In  Foss's  "  Judges  of  England"  there  is  an  interesting  memoir  of  the 
last  lord  chancellor,  Lord  Hatherley,  in  part  from  materials  supplied  by 
himself. 


192 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


ing-point  for  Grant.  The  premier  gave  him  a  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment, and,  although  hardly  known  at  the  bar,  caused  him  to 
receive  a  silk  gown.  He  showed  himself  a  great  lawyer  •  but 
far  above  that,  he  was  a  great  parliamentary  orator.  It  has 
been  said  by  Lord  Brougham  that,  with  the  exception  of  Mr. 
Pitt,  perhaps  no  man  had  ever  greater  sway  in  the  House  than 
Grant.  By  the  consent  of  the  whole  bar  he  seems  to  have 
attained  the  highest  point  of  judicial  eloquence.  "  The  charm 
of  it  was  indescribable ;  its  effect  on  the  hearers  was  that 
which  Milton  describes  when  he  paints  Adam  listening  to  the 
angel  after  the  angel  had  ceased  to  speak." 

Another  great  lawyer,  whose  tone  of  mind  is  very  similar  to 
Sir  William  Grant's,  was  Lord  Stowell.  His  fame  has  been 
somewhat  overshadowed  by  that  of  his  still  greater  brother, 
Lord  Eldon.  But  the  fame  of  Lord  Stowell  is  certainly  more 
cosmopolitan,  and  will  probably  be  more  lasting.  He  is  one 
of  the  great  founders  of  international  law.  If  you  take  up 
such  a  text-book  on  public  law  as  "Wheaton's  Elements  of 
International  Law" — it  was  Jeremy  Bentham  who  coined  the 
felicitous  phrase — it  will  be  seen  how  often  his  decisions  are 
quoted.  During  the  long  French  war  Lord  Stowell  adminis- 
tered and  in  part  created  our  civil  law,  showing  perfect  im- 
partiality to  Englishmen  and  foreigners,  and  English  justice 
became  as  famous  throughout  Europe  as  English  victory. 
Such  are  the  great  judges,  who,  although  not  well  known  to 
general  readers,  are  the  men  who  largely  fix  the  estimate  in 
which  England  is  held  by  that  foreign  opinion  which,  accord- 
ing to  that  fine  saying  of  Burke's  which  Madame  de  Stael  so 
often  repeated,  anticipates  the  verdict  of  posterity.  It  is  re- 
markable that  Lord  Stowell  always  looked  back  on  old  days 
at  Oxford  as  the  happiest  of  his  life,  and  an  old  Oxford  Cal- 
endar was  to  him,  from  its  associations,  as  touching  as  any 
volume  of  poetry  could  be. 


SUCCESSFUL    LAWYERS.  193 

Only  a  few  years  ago  there  died  one  of  our  most  successful 
lawyers,  Pemberton  Leigh,  Baron  Kingsdown.  He  has  left 
behind  him  a  privately  printed  work,  most  of  which  was  al- 
lowed to  appear  in  one  of  the  leading  reviews,  giving  an  ac- 
count of  his  "  Recollections"  in  Parliament  and  at  the  bar. 
He  retired  from  both  at  the  age  of  fifty.  He  refused  to  be 
solicitor-general ;  he  refused  to  be  lord  chancellor.  His  name 
was  little  heard  of  by  the  general  public.  He  simply  detest- 
ed popularity ;  but  for  twenty  years  he  was  one  of  the  great- 
est judges  of  the  final  Court  of  Appeal.  A  peerage — for  he 
never  took  pay — was  the  only  reward  which  he  ever  accepted 
from  the  country.  He  gives  a  touching  picture  of  the  pov- 
erty and  hard  work  of  his  early  life,  but  he  adds :  "  It  was  the 
severe  preparation  for  the  subsequent  harvest.  I  learned  to 
consider  indefatigable  labor  as  the  indispensable  condition  of 
success ;  pecuniary  independence  as  essential  alike  to  virtue 
and  happiness,  and  no  sacrifice  too  great  to  avoid  the  misery 
of  debt."  Mr.  Pemberton  Leigh  obtained  a  large  practice, 
and  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons  several  useful  reforms. 
The  following  is  the  account  of  his  feelings  when  he  won  his 
first  election  :  "  I  shall  never  forget  the  night  in  which,  after 
so  much  excitement,  I  found  myself  a  member  of  Parliament. 
I  threw  myself  upon  my  knees,  and  earnestly  prayed  to  the 
Source  of  all  strength  that  I  might  be  enabled  to  perform 
faithfully  and  successfully  the  duties  which  belong  to  that  po- 
sition." At  the  death  of  his  distant  kinsman,  Sir  Robert  Leigh, 
he  became  possessed,  under  very  remarkable  circumstances, 
of  a  property  of  many  thousands  a  year.  At  the  age  of  fifty 
he  resolved  to  retire,  and  commence  the  life  of  a  country  gen- 
tleman. "  I  provided  myself  with  microscopes,  telescopes, 
painting  implements,  a  chest  of  turner's  tools,  and  I  know  not 
how  many  other  resources  against  ennui,  none  of  which  I  ever 
used ;  and,  after  the  lapse  of  seventeen  years,  I  can  safely  say 

I 


194 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


that  I  never  had  one  hour  hang  heavy  on  me,  nor  felt  any 
thing  but  regret  at  being  called  upon  to  forsake  my  solitude 
in  order  to  attend  the  sittings  of  the  judicial  committee."  We 
are  informed  that'Lord  Kingsdown  was  warmly  attached  to 
the  Church  of  England,  and  more  than  one  parish  church  was 
built  or  restored  at  his  expense. 

Or  again,  we  might  take  some  eminent  lawyers  who,  having 
attained  the  highest  distinctions  at  the  English  bar,  became 
each  of  them  lord  chancellor  of  Ireland.  To  mention  one, 
such  was  Mitford,  the  brother  of  the  historian  of  Greece.  He 
was  one  of  those  few  great  lawyers  whose  parliamentary  runs 
parallel  with  their  forensic  fame — one  of  that  class  of  lawyers, 
not  very  numerous,  who  have  obtained  large  business  by  writ- 
ing a  law-book.  The  legal  attitude  he  took  up  in  Parliament 
reflected  on  him  the  highest  honor.  There  was  nothing  about 
him,  and  there  never  is  in  the  best  lawyers,  merely  technical 
and  litigious.  He  implored  the  House  of  Commons,  on  their 
prosecution  of  Hastings,  to  adhere  to  two  principles,  "  never 
to  bring  forward  a  fact  that  was  matter  of  calumny  to  the  ac- 
cused, and  never  to  inflame  the  passions  of  those  who  are  to 
decide  as  judges."  The  share  which  he  took  in  legislation 
was  of  a  calm,  judicial,  and  impartial  kind.  The  House  of 
Commons  did  itself  the  honor  of  electing  him  speaker.  But 
Mitford  frankly  said,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  bar  was  his 
profession,  and  that  it  was  in  his  profession  that  he  looked  for 
promotion.  He  subsequently  became  Lord  Redesdale  and 
Chancellor  of  Ireland.  After  his  return  from  Ireland  he  was 
for  many  years  one  of  the  most  useful  and  efficient  members 
of  the  House  of  Lords.  His  son,  the  chairman  of  committees, 
has  maintained  the  same  character  for  ability  and  integrity. 
It  is  such  men  as  these  who  redeem  the  profession  of  the  bar 
from  the  reproaches  so  often  brought  against  it,  and  enable 
us  to  realize  that  great  idea  of  law  which  Hooker  has  so  nobly 


SUCCESSFUL   LAWYERS. 


195 


expressed:  "Of  Law  there  can  be  no  less  acknowledged  that 
her  seat  is  the  bosom  of  God,  and  her  voice  the  harmony  of 
the  universe.  All  things  in  heaven  and  earth  do  her  homage, 
the  very  least  as  feeling  her  care,  and  the  greatest  as  not  ex- 
empted from  her  power.  Both  angels  and  men,  and  all  crea- 
tures of  what  condition  soever,  though  each  in  different  sort 
and  manner,  yet  all  with  uniform  consent,  admire  her  as  being 
the  mother  of  their  peace  and  joy." 

King  George  the  Third,  on  an  occasion  when  Mr.  Justice 
Park  was  present,  said  of  him :  "  It  is  wonderful  to  think  that 
this  little  head  contains  the  whole  law  of  England."  "  Not 
so,  sire,"  replied  the  judge,  "it  but  contains  the  knowledge 
where  the  law  may  be  found." 

An  acute  lawyer  has  remarked  that  Sergeant  Wilde,  after- 
ward Lord  Truro,  who  began  life  as  a  solicitor,  and  who  was, 
probably  for  forty  years,  concerned  in  nearly  every  important 
commercial  case  in  the  city  of  London,  either  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  must  have  been  at  the  making  of  a  great  part  of  the 
commercial  law.  For  in  this  country  the  law  is  built  up  by 
numerous  decisions,  which  daily  increase  the  fabric,  and,  as 
Junius  well  remarked,  "What  yesterday  was  fact,  to-day  is 
doctrine."  The  readiness  with  which  the  prodigious  memory 
and  powerful  brain  of  Sergeant  Wilde  enabled  him  to  recall 
the  facts  and  doctrines  laid  down  in  all  the  leading  cases  of 
nearly  half  a  century  was  sufficient  to  strike  with  amazement 
a  person  of  ordinary  powers.  Sir  John  Campbell,  when  at- 
torney-general, brought  to  the  discharge  of  his  important  du- 
ties not  only  advantages  similar  to  those  of  Sergeant  Wilde, 
but,  from  having  been  a  reporter,  and  having  written  out  so 
many  of  the  leading  cases,  had  so  completely  impressed  them 
on  his  mind  that  he  could  quote  to  younger  men,  to  whose  in- 
quiries he  was  always  accessible,  not  only  the  names  of  the 
principal  cases  in  every  branch  of  the  common  law,  but  also 


196  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

the  names  of  the  reports,  the  volumes,  and  even  the  pages  in 
which  they  were  to  be  found.  .  .  .  Sergeant  Wilde,  at  Guild- 
hall, has  often  been  concerned  in  six  cases  in  one  day,  and 
has  stated  the  names  of  persons,  dates,  and  sums  of  money  in 
each  case,  from  memory,  without  referring  to  his  brief  or  any 
other  written  memorandum. 

It  would  be  easy  to  select  many  legal  biographies  rich  with 
incident  and  instruction.  As  a  story  of  perseverance  and 
success  there  is  none  that  exceeds  in  interest  the  career  of 
Lord  Tenderden,  who,  to  many  great  titles,  was,  as  his  biog- 
rapher says,  especially  entitled  to  be  called  "  the  humble  and 
the  just." 

We  will  now  take  in  detail  the  exemplary  life  of  this  great 
lawyer,  Lord  Chief-Justice  Tenderden.  It  will  illustrate  the 
turning-points  of  a  great  lawyer's  progress.  Just  opposite  the 
magnificent  west  portal  of  Canterbury  Cathedral,  at  the  cor- 
ner of  a  narrow  street,  there  was  once  a  barber's  shop.  It  has 
now  disappeared  to  make  room  for  the  house  of  the  architect 
to  the  cathedral.  It  had  in  front  of  it  the  long  traditionary 
barber's  pole  of  several  colors.  It  was  only  a  poor,  mean- 
looking  tenement,  having  blocks  in  the  window  partly  bare 
and  partly  covered  with  wigs,  a  sign  over  the  door  with  the 
shopman's  name,  and  with  the  announcement  that  shaving 
cost  a  penny,  hair-cutting  two-pence,  and  that  the  hair  could 
be  fashionably  dressed  on  reasonable  terms.  It  is  still  local- 
ly recollected  that  there  was  a  stationer's  shop  attached  to 
this  one.  The  barber's  shop  was  kept  by  a  worthy  hair-dress- 
er of  the  name  of  Abbott.  He  was  a  tall,  erect,  primitive- 
looking  man,  with  a  large  club  pigtail,  who  might  often  be 
seen  going  about  with  his  instruments  of  business  under  his 
arm,  attended  by  his  son  Charles,  "  a  decent,  grave,  primitive- 
looking  youth."  That  child  afterward  commemorated  his 
prudent  father  and  his  pious  mother.  Living  beneath  the 


SUCCESSFUL   LAWYERS. 


197 


very  shadow  of  the  great  cathedral,  the  humble  family  learned 
to  love  it,  and  to  prize  its  blessings.  There  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  they  constantly  attended  the  cathedral  services. 
The  clergy  were  very  kind  to  the  worthy  man,  who  was,  indeed, 
hair-dresser  to  the  entire  chapter,  and  who  made  it  his  boast 
that,  on  no  less  than  three  occasions,  he  had  attended  the 
archbishop  himself  on  the  occasion  of  triennial  visitations. 

All  through  the  career  of  his  son  Charles,  who  became  one 
of  the  most  illustrious  magistrates  that  the  English  bench  has 
ever  known,  we  see  the  advantages  of  the  endowments  for 
education  provided  by  pious,  charitable  men  in  past  ages  ;  we 
see,  too,  the  good  effected  by  good  men  in  the  case  of  a  poor, 
deserving  scholar ;  and  we  may  trace,  too,  the  kindly  guidings 
of  Providence  in  his  behalf.  The  King's  School,  at  Canter- 
bury, gave  the  small  tradesman's  child  an  education  as  thor- 
ough and  complete  as  could  be  given  to  the  son  of  the  richest 
noble.  The  head-master  was  a  profound  scholar,  with  the 
rare  gift  of  being  able  to  impart  his  abundant  knowledge. 
He  eagerly  sought  for  signs  of  ability  and  attention  among  his 
pupils,  and  helped  and  encouraged  them  with  all  his  might. 
His  attention  was  soon  drawn  to  the  cleverness  and  good  con- 
duct of  young  Abbott.  In  course  of  time  the  lad  turned  out 
Latin  verse  which  the  head-master  declared  was  as  good  as 
any  that  could  be  produced  at  Winchester  or  Eton.  His 
school  fellows  afterward  described  him  as  a  grave,  silent  boy, 
very  well  behaved,  always  studious  and  fond  of  reading,  even 
in  his  play-hours.  He  made  very  few  mistakes  in  his  lessons, 
always  striving  to  be  accurate  and  equably  industrious. 

At  fourteen  he  was  a  great  hungry  boy,  and,  however  well 
he  was  getting  on  at  school,  his  parents  thought  that  it  was 
high  time  he  should  be  earning  his  own  living.  At  this  time 
the  place  of  a  singing-boy  became  vacant  in  the  cathedral. 
Old  Abbott  thought  that  his  son,  with  his  good  character  and 


198 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


his  father's  good  character,  and  his  own  lively  parts,  would 
stand  a  good  chance.  The  members  of  the  chapter  were  no 
doubt  willing  and  anxious  to  oblige  their  worthy  hair-dresser, 
but  they  had  chiefly  to  consider  the  efficiency  of  their  musical 
services.  It  was  found  that  Abbott's  voice  was  husky,  but 
there  was  another  boy  with  an  excellent  voice,  who  very  prop- 
erly received  the  appointment.  Many  years  after,  Charles 
Abbott  became  a  nobleman  and  chief-justice  of  England. 
While  going  circuit  with  another  judge  he  came  to  that  famil- 
iar Cathedral  of  Canterbury.  The  chief-justice  pointed  out 
a  singing-man  in  the  choir.  "  Behold,  brother  Richardson," 
said  he,  "  that  is  the  only  human  being  I  ever  envied.  When 
at  school  in  this  town  we  were  candidates  together  for  a  chor- 
ister's place ;  he  obtained  it,  and  if  I  had  gained  my  wish  he 
might  have  been  accompanying  you  as  chief-justice,  and  point- 
ing me  out  as  his  old  school-fellow  the  singing-man." 

So  Charles  Abbott  was  not  to  be  a  chorister,  and  accord- 
ingly he  continued  for  a  further  space  at  the  King's  School. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  he  became  captain  of  the 
school.  When  Charles  was  seventeen  his  father  thought  it 
absolutely  necessary  that  he  should  earn  his  own  bread.  Let 
him  be  apprenticed  to  the  paternal  business,  and  keep  a  shop 
as  his  father  did  before  him.  This  idea  was  a  great  shock  to 
the  kind  head-master.  He  thought  that  his  most  promising 
pupil  ought  to  go  to  college,  and  that  the  Canterbury  people 
ought  to  help  in  sending  him  there.  In  a  quiet  way  a  sum 
of  money  was  collected  in  the  old  city  for  the  purpose  of  his 
outfit,  and  the  trustees  of  the  school  granted  him  a  small  ex- 
hibition which  was  then  vacant.  This  still  was  insufficient, 
and  it  is  said  that  an  indenture  binding  Charles  Abbott  to  the 
shaving-business  was  actually  sealed,  signed,  and  delivered, 
when  the  trustees,  apparently  stretching  a  point  in  his  favor, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  they  had  power  to  increase  the 


SUCCESSFUL   LAWYERS. 


199 


exhibition  from  the  funds  of  the  school.  They  voted  a  sum 
that  would  be  a  sparing  academical  subsistence  for  a  young 
man  for  the  three  years  preceding  his  degree.  In  after  years, 
when  he  had  become  a  great  judge,  he  was  himself  one  of 
the  trustees.  At  a  business  meeting  of  the  body,  among  the 
agenda  of  the  day  there  was  an  application  from  an  Oxford 
exhibitioner  from  the  school  for  an  increase  of  his  allowance. 
The  secretary  declared  that,  after  a  diligent  search  for  preced- 
ents, he  could  only  discover  one  which  had  happened  many 
years  before.  "  That  student  was  myself,"  said  the  learned 
judge ;  and  he  immediately  supplied  the  required  sum  from 
his  own  private  purse. 

The  barber's  son  was  now  an  undergraduate  of  Oxford. 
He  entered  at  Corpus  Christi  College,  where  he  soon  obtained 
a  classical  scholarship.  We  find  him  writing  to  a  friend  :  "  I 
have  received  two  letters  from  my  dearest  mother,  in  which 
she  gives  me  an  account  how  sincerely  all  my  friends  at  Can- 
terbury have  congratulated  her  on  my  success,  and  friends  so 
much  superior  to  our  humble  condition  that  she  says, '  such  a 
universal  joy  as  appeared  on  the  occasion  I  believe  hardly  ever 
happened  in  a  town  left  by  a  tradesman's  son.'  Who  would 
not  undergo  any  labor  to  give  pleasure  to  such  parents !  .  .  . 
But  a  little  while  past  to  be  a  scholar  of  Corpus  was  the  height 
of  my  ambition  ;  that  summit  is,  thank  Heaven,  gained,  when 
another  and  another  appears  still  in  view.  In  a  word,  I  shall 
not  rest  easy  till  I  have  ascended  the  rostrum  in  the  theatre." 
There  was  then  no  class-list  at  Oxford,  and  the  highest  uni- 
versity distinction  was  to  gain  the  chancellor's  medal  and  re- 
cite a  prize  composition  from  the  rostrum  of  the  Sheldonian 
theatre.  The  subject  for  the  Latin  poem  open  to  undergrad- 
uates was  the  then  recent  glorious  defense  of -Gibraltar — 
"  Calpe  Obsessa"  was  the  subject.  He  failed,  but  his  poem, 
when  returned  to  him,  bore  an  encouraging  phrase  which  in- 


200  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

dicated  that  it  had  been  second  best.  The  man  who  obtained 
it  was  Mr.  W.  L.  Bowles,  who  afterward  became  a  useful  clergy- 
man and  a  not  undistinguished  poet.  Forty  years  afterward, 
when  a  judge  on  crfcuit,  he  met  Mr.  Bowles  at  Salisbury,  and 
with  that  unfailing  memory  which  university  men  have  for  old 
college  days,  the  judge  recalled  their  old  competition,  grace- 
fully saying  that  the  rule  had  been  preserved  that  the  best 
man  ought  to  win  :  "  detur  digniori"  was  the  familiar  Latin 
phrase. 

The  subjects  of  the  prize  poems  then,  as  now,  were  chosen 
from  striking  contemporary  events.  Lunardi's  balloon  voyages 
were  at  this  time  exciting  the  greatest  attention  and  astonish- 
ment. It  was  little  thought  that  this  invention  could  be  util- 
ized to  the  great  extent  which  we  have  lately  seen  in  France ; 
but  then,  as  now,  the  idea  was  entertained  that  the  balloon 
would  be  found  susceptible  of  guidance  in  any  given  direc- 
tion, and  would  promote  rapid  intercourse  between  different 
nations.  The  balloon,  "  Globus  Aerostoticus,"  was  the  sub- 
ject of  the  prize  poem.  Abbott  obtained  it,  and  accordingly 
mounted  the  rostrum  victoriously.  Next  year  he  obtained  an- 
other chancellor's  medal  with  a  remarkable  essay  on  the  Use 
and  Abuse  of  Satire.  But  in  the  midst  of  this  success  his 
happiness  was  overshadowed  by  the  death  of  his  father.  His 
mother  kept  on  the  shop  opposite  Canterbury  Cathedral,  and 
sold  perfumery.  He  was  willing  to  go  out  to  Virginia  as 
tutor  if  fifty  pounds  a  year  might  be  settled  on  his  mother  for 
life.  "  This,"  he  wrote,  "  with  the  little  left  her  by  my  father, 
would  afford  her  a  comfortable  subsistence  without  the  fatigue 
of  business,  which  she  is  becoming  very  unable  to  bear."  This 
condition  failing,  Abbott  gave  up  the  idea  of  going  to  America. 

It  was  well  for  him  that  he  did  not.  He  had  now  achieved 
a  great  university  reputation.  Many  private  pupils  came  to 
him.  After  he  had  taken  his  degree  he  was  made  fellow  oi 


SUCCESSFUL   LAWYERS.  201 

his  college,  and  became  junior  tutor.  He  dressed  and  lived 
plainly,  and  it  was  thought  remarkable  that  he  never  rode  on 
horseback.  Once  he  told  a  friend  with  an  air  of  triumph, 
"  My  father  was  too  poor  ever  to  keep  a  horse,  and  I  was  too 
proud  ever  to  earn  sixpence  by  holding  the  horse  of  another." 
About  this  time  it  was  Abbott's  intention  to  take  holy  orders. 
But  it  so  happened  that  he  was  asked  to  become  tutor  to  a  son 
of  that  famous  lawyer,  Mr.  Justice  Buller,  and  was  thrown  into 
close  intimacy  with  the  great  judge,  as  he  often  spent  some 
time  at  the  country-seat  in  Devonshire.  Buller  was  one  of 
the  greatest  of  English  judges.  It  has  been  said  that  as 
Burke's  name  in  the  Senate,  so  is  Buller's  in  Westminster 
Hall.  There  are  some  curious  points  in  Buller's  personal 
history.  He  married  at  the  early  age  of  seventeen,  and  was 
made  a  judge  at  the  unprecedented  early  age  of  thirty-two. 
He  also  died  at  a  comparatively  early  age.  Lord  Mansfield 
had  soon  perceived  his  extraordinary  ability,  and  procured 
him  promotion.  What  Lord  Mansfield  had  done  for  Buller, 
that  Buller  in  turn  did  for  the  future  Lord  Tenderden.  He 
clearly  discerned  the  great  intellectual  strength  that  charac- 
terized his  son's  tutor,  and  urged  him  to  go  to  the  bar.  It  is 
said  that  he  furnished  Abbott  with  funds  to  enable  him  to  do 
so,  and  as  this  seems  to  have  been  Judge  Buller's  kind  way 
with  several  young  men  of  promise,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  he 
did  so.  The  sagacious  judge  also  recommended  him  to  go 
to  a  lawyer's  office  for  some  months,  to  acquire  a  knowledge 
of  the  practical  details  of  law.  He  soon  gained  this  requisite 
knowledge,  and  also  formed  a  valuable  legal  connection. 
Moreover,  he  managed  to  muster  up  a  hundred  guineas  to 
become  a  pupil  of  George  Wood,  whom  Lord  Campbell  calls 
the  "  Great  Master  of  Special  Pleading."  At  the  end  of  a 
year  Wood  told  him  that  he  had  taught  him  all  he  could. 
We  are  told  that  he  worked  night  and  day  in  his  small  cham- 

I  2 


202  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

bers  in  Brick  Court.  He  determined  to  practice  as  a  special 
pleader  below  the  bar,  until  he  could  take  his  call  with  every 
prospect  of  success. 

For  seven  years  lie  kept  a  sort  of  legal  shop,  and  the  shop 
kept  him.  He  gave  all  his  friends  to  understand  that  he  was 
ready  to  draw  declarations,  pleas,  replications,  and  demurrers 
with  the  utmost  dispatch,  and  on  most  reasonable  terms.  He 
kept  a  small  boy  as  clerk,  at  ten  shillings  a  week.  Modest, 
learned,  industrious,  he  was  always  to  be  found  in  his  cham- 
bers fulfilling  his  promises  to  the  letter,  and  never  losing  a 
friend.  His  door  was  always  open,  his  opinion  always  safe, 
his  services  ever  prompt.  He  made  a  considerable  income 
as  a  special  pleader,  but  he  determined  that  he  would  push  on 
to  the  bar.  He  received  his  call  at  the  Inner  Temple,  and 
went  the  Oxford  Circuit.  He  at  once  rose  to  a  large  business. 
He  was  not  like  some  barristers,  a  great  advocate,  nor,  like 
others,  a  skillful  cross -examiner.  But  the  solicitors  liked 
him;  the  judges  listened  to  him  with  respect ;  he  was  of  the 
greatest  help  to  a  leader,  he  showed  himself  skillful  and  saga- 
cious, and  his  law  was  thorough  and  deep.  He  was  never  an 
advocate  in  any  real  sense  of  the  term,  but  he  was  a  great 
lawyer  and  a  great  judge.  He  acquired  a  great  and  special 
reputation  as  a  commercial  lawyer,  and  published  a  book, 
which  was  much  wanted,  on  "  Merchants'  Ships  and  Seamen." 
The  MS.  of  this  book  still  remains,  written,  we  are  informed, 
in  a  beautifully  neat,  clear  hand.  In  England  his  book  is  be- 
coming superseded  by  the  new  Merchant  Shipping  Acts,  but 
in  America  it  continues  to  be  the  standard  work  on  the  sub- 
ject. That  old  cathedral  connection  seemed  still  to  cling  to 
him,  and  to  bring  him  prosperity.  He  was  known  to  be  a 
good  ecclesiastical  lawyer  and  sound  churchman,  and  Lord 
Campbell,  who  knew  him  well,  says  that  he  had  a  general  re- 
tainer from  most  of  the  prelates  and  deans  and  chapters. 


SUCCESSFUL   LAWYERS. 


203 


When  his  business  became  considerable,  he  ventured  to  mar- 
ry. The  father  of  the  young  lady,  a  country  gentleman,  called 
at  his  chambers,  and  asked  him  how  he  hoped  to  maintain 
his  future  wife.  He  answered,  "  By  the  books  in  this  room, 
and  two  pupils  in  the  next."  They  lived  for  years  very  hap- 
pily in  a  little  house  in  Bloomsbury  Square.  We  are  told 
that  his  was  a  cheerful  and  pious  household.  Some  very 
touching  and  affectionate  letters  to  his  wife  are  on  record,  and 
the  following  playful  lines  : 

"  In  the  noise  of  the  bar  and  crowds  of  the  hall, 

Tho'  destined  still  longer  to  move, 
Let  my  thoughts  wander  home  and  my  memory  recall 
The  dear  pleasures  of  beauty  and  love. 

"  The  soft  looks  of  my  girl,  the  sweet  voice  of  my  boy, 

Their  antics,  their  hobbies,  their  sports  ; 
How  the  houses  he  builds  her  quick  fingers  destroy, 
And  with  kisses  his  pardon  she  courts. 

"  With  eyes  full  of  tenderness,  pleasure,  and  pride, 

The  fond  mother  sits  watching  their  play, 
Or  turns,  if  I  look  not,  my  dullness  to  chide, 
And  invites  me,  like  them,  to  be  gay. 

"  She  invites  to  be  gay,  and  I  yield  to  her  voice, 

And  my  toils  and  my  sorrows  forget ; 
In  her  beauty,  her  sweetness,  her  kindness  rejoice, 
And  hallow  the  day  that  we  met. 

"  Full  bright  were  her  charms  in  the  bloom  of  her  life, 

When  I  walked  down  the  church  by  her  side, 
And,  five  years  passed  over,  I  now  find  the  wife 
More  lovely  and  fair  than  the  bride." 

After  a  long  and  prosperous  career  at  the  bar,  his  health 
showed  symptoms  of  decline.  He  saw  reason  to  fear  that  his 
eyesight  was  failing  him.  He  longed  for  the  comparative  rest 
and  ease  of  the  judicial  bench.  But  he  was  disappointed.  No 
promotion  came.  When  a  vacancy  arose,  he  was  passed  over. 


204 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


He  was  determined  to  retire  from  the  bar,  and  his  only  diffi- 
culty was  whether  he  should  take  up  his  abode  at  Oxford  or 
Canterbury.  He  had  just  resolved  upon  Oxford  when  one  of 
the  judges  of  the  Common  Pleas,  Mr.  John  Heath — for  Heath 
had  always  steadily  refused  to  be  knighted — died,  as  he  always 
said  he  would,  "  in  harness,"  at  the  age  of  eighty.  Charles 
Abbott  was  made  judge,  and,  taking  the  degree  of  sergeant-at- 
law,  as  was  then  usual,  he  assumed  armorial  bearings,  with 
the  motto  which  so  well  described  his  simple,  industrious  life 
— "Labore." 

He  was  now  judge.  His  youthful  vision  of  going  to  his 
native  town  in  ermine  and  scarlet  was  to  be  fulfilled.  He 
saw  at  once  that  he  should  much  more  greatly  enjoy  being 
judge  than  counsel.  The  search  for  truth,  he  said,  was  much 
more  pleasant  than  the  search  for  arguments.  He  was  in  a 
very  short  time  removed  from  the  Common  Pleas  to  what  was 
then  the  much  more  laborious  work  of  the  Queen's  Bench. 
This  was  in  1816.  Lord  Ellenborough  then  presided  over  the 
King's  Bench,  and  the  other  puisne  judges  besides  Abbott 
were  those  great  lawyers  Holroyd  and  Bayley.  Before  two 
years  had  passed,  it  became  quite  clear  to  Westminster  Hall 
that  one  of  the  greatest  common-law  judges  had  risen  on  the 
bench.  In  1818  Lord  Ellenborough  was  struck  down  by  pa- 
ralysis. It  became  a  matter  of  the  keenest  interest  who  should 
become  the  new  chief-justice  of  England.  After  some  delay 
and  many  conjectures,  it  became  known  that  Mr.  Justice  Abbott 
was  to  preside  as  chief  over  the  court  where  he  had  been 
puisne  judge.  And  now  the  full  lustre  of  Abbott's  extraordi- 
nary character  became  fully  apparent.  He  was  the  most  acute 
and  upright  of  magistrates.  His  court  became  what  lawyers 
call  an  exceedingly  "strong"  court.  Lord  Campbell  glows 
with  enthusiasm  as  he  describes  that  time.  "  Before  such  men 
there  was  no  pretense  for  being  lengthy  or  importunate.  Every 


SUCCESSFUL   LAWYERS. 


205 


point  made  by  counsel  was  understood  in  a  moment;  the  ap- 
plication of  every  authority  was  understood  at  a  glance ;  the 
counsel  saw  when  he  might  sit  down,  his  case  being  safe,  and 
when  he  might  sit  down,  all  chance  of  success  for  his  client 
being  at  an  end.  During  that  golden  age  law  and  reason  pre- 
vailed. The  result  was  confidently  anticipated  by  the  know- 
ing before  the  argument  began,  and  the  judgment  was  approved 
by  all  who  heard  it  pronounced,  including  the  vanquished 
party.  Before  such  a  tribunal  the  advocate  becomes  dearer 
to  himself  by  preserving  his  own  esteem.  I  do  not  believe 
that  so  much  important  business  was  ever  done  so  rapidly  and 
so  well  before  any  other  court  that  ever  sat  in  any  age  or 
country.  The  principal  merit  is  no  doubt  due  to  Abbott,  and 
no  one  could  have  played  his  part  so  well." 

Nine  years  after  his  elevation  to  the  office  of  chief-justice, 
Abbott  was  raised  to  the  peerage.  Mr.  Canning  wrote  to  him 
in  1827:  "As  in  the  approaching  law  promotions,  more  than 
one  peerage  will  be  conferred  by  His  Majesty,  it  has  occurred 
to  Mr.  Canning,  as  due  to  Lord  Chief-Justice  Abbott,  to  his 
lordship's  eminent  services,  and  to  the  dignity  of  the  court 
over  which  he  presides,  that  an  opportunity  should  be  afforded 
to  the  Lord  Chief-Justice  to  express  his  wish  (if  he  entertains 
it)  for  a  similar  honor."  He  was  accordingly  raised  to  the 
peerage  by  the  title  of  Tenterden,  with  which  place,  as  a 
Kentish  man,  he  had  many  associations.  Latimer's  quaint 
sermon  will  be  recollected  by  many  of  our  readers,  in  which 
he  connects  the  Goodwin  Sands  with  Tenterden  steeple. 
That  was  a  great  day  at  Westminster  Hall  when  the  whole 
bar  of  England  wished  to  do  the  chief-justice  honor,  on  the 
occasion  of  his  taking  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords.  "We 
all  stood  under  the  bar,"  says  Lord  Campbell ;  "  such  a  serried 
conglomeration  of  wigs  never  was  seen  before  or  since."  Next 
day  Lord  Tenterden  threw  down  a  note  to  the  attorney- 


206  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

general,  which  was  handed  through  all  rows  of  the  bar,  say- 
ing how  the  kindness  of  their  attendance  had  gone  to  his 
heart.  He  was  not  able  to  attend  the  House  of  Lords  much, 
as  his  time  was  greatly  absorbed  by  his  judicial  duties.  He 
made,  however,  at  least  one  great  speech,  of  which  the  then 
Bishop  of  Rochester  said  that  it  was  most  impressive  and  con- 
vincing. He  also  effected  some  useful  legislation  in  promot- 
ing law  reforms.  After  the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill  he 
never  sat  again  in  the  House  of  Peers. 

Lord  Tenterden's  health  was  now  altogether  failing.  He 
amused  himself  by  studying  botany  and  composing  Latin 
verse.  He  wrote  a  very  pretty  Latin  poem  on  "  The  Lily  of 
the  Valley,"  and  Latinized  much  of  the  "Lady  of  the  Lake." 
He  beautifully  concludes  a  Latin  poem  on  the  "  Conservatory" 
by  expressing  the  hope  that  it  might  be  allowed  him  to  soothe 
his  cares  by  the  strains  of  poetic  story,  and  in  weary  age  to 
gather  the  same  flowers  that  he  gathered  in  his  youth.  In 
company  he  was  always  courteous,  and  among  his  intimate 
friends  he  took  pleasure  in  referring  to  the  days  of  his  youth. 
This  great  judge  is  known  to  have  possessed  one  remarkable 
defect,  that  of  an  irritable  temper.  But  it  was  beautiful  to  see 
how  he  conquered  this  defect  by  principle,  or  rather  by  Chris- 
tian grace.  The  very  defect  that  might  have  injured  him 
served  to  adorn  his  character.  "  It  was  singular  with  what 
effect  he  fought  against  this,"  says  Lord  Campbell,  "  and  how 
he  mastered  the  rebellious  part  of  his  nature.  Indeed,  it  was 
a  study  to  observe  this  battle,  or  rather  victory,  for  the  conflict 
was  too  successful  to  be  apparent  on  many  occasions.  He 
directed  the  jury  in  every  particular,  as  if  no  irritation  had 
ever  passed  over  his  mind  in  the  course  of  the  cause.  It  was 
therefore  an  edifying  sight  to  observe  Lord  Tenterden,  whose 
temper  had  been  visibly  affected  during  the  trial,  addressing 
himself  to  the  points  of  the  cause  with  the  same  perfect  calm- 


SUCCESSFUL   LAWYERS.  207 

ness  and  indifference  with  which  a  mathematician  pursues  the 
investigation  of  an  abstract  truth."  Judge  Talfourd  says  of 
him:  "The  chief  judicial  virtue  of  his  mind  was  that  of  impar- 
tiality ;  not  mere  independence  of  external  influences,  but  the 
general  absence  of  tendency  in  the  mind  itself  to  take  a  part 
or  receive  a  bias."  To  us  this  appears  to  be  the  ne plus  ultra 
of  a  judge. 

Such  a  career  as  that  of  Lord  Tenterden  is  a  boon  to  En- 
gland. It  shows  the  fairness  and  impartiality  of  public  life.  It 
indicates  how  in  England  the  highest  positions  are  open  to 
the  lowliest.  It  shows  how  bravely  honors  may  be  won,  and 
how  meekly  they  may  be  borne. 

Lord  Tenterden  died  at  the  post  of  duty.  There  had  been 
an  important  trial,  and  the  chief-justice  presided  for  the  first 
two  days,  but  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day  he  went  home 
ill.  It  was  found  to  be  fever,  which  baffled  all  the  efforts  of 
such  eminent  men  as  Sir  Henry  Halford,  Dr.  Holland,  and  Sir 
Benjamin  Brodie.  It  was  an  instance,  like  the  later  instances 
of  Wightman  and  Talfourd,  of  a  man  dying  at  his  post.  In 
his  last  moments  he  imagined  that  he  was  summing  up  a  case, 
and  died  after  uttering  the  words,  "  And  now,  gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  you  will  consider  of  your  verdict."  His  monument, 
which  bears  an  epitaph  written  by  himself,  may  be  seen  at  the 
Foundling  Hospital,  of  which  he  was  a  governor.  That  epi- 
taph sums  up  the  moral  of  his  life.  He  tells  us  how  he  was 
born  of  the  lowliest  parents,  who  were  yet  pious  and  prudent, 
and  that  the  reader  might  learn  by  his  example  how  much 
among  Englishmen  honorable  labor  may  achieve,  with  the 
favor  of  Heaven.  His  son  adds  the  words, 

"  Haec  de  conscripsit 
Vir  summus  idemque  omnium  modestissimus." 

Lord  Campbell  speaks  with  the  highest  honor  of  the  good 
son  who  thus  completed  the  epitaph.  His  grandson,  too,  has 


208  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE, 

added  fresh  lustre  to  the  name  of  Tenterden  by  his  services 
on  the  Commission  which  crossed  the  Channel  to  negotiate 
the  Treaty  of  Washington,  and  at  the  Court  of  Arbitration 
which  sat  at  Geneva — services  which  have  been  duly  recog- 
nized by  the  crown,  and  are  the  earnest  of  a  career  worthy  of 
the  name  of  Tenterden. 


THE    CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT.  2og 


CHAPTER   XL 

The  Christian  Merchant. 

STANDING  in  that  central  space  of  the  city  which  is  the 
very  heart  of  London's  heart,  amid  the  multitudinous  tumult 
of  those  who  are  "  citizens  of  no  mean  city,"  it  was  not  with- 
out emotion  that  I  read  the  legend  over  the  greatest  Exchange 
in  the  world — "  The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness  there- 
of; the  compass  of  the  world  and  they  that  dwell  therein." 
The  legend  is  indeed  worthy  of  a  city  "  whose  merchants  are 
princes  and  whose  traffickers  are  the  honorable  of  the  earth." 
The  inspired  words  lend  to  trade  its  consecration.  It  is  the 
acknowledgment  that  the  teeming  produce  of  the  earth  and 
seas,  the  treasures  of  the  forest  and  the  mine,  all  the  yield 
and  increase  within  Arctic  and  Antarctic  circle,  are  the  Lord's, 
and  that  he  freely  outspreads  them  for  the  use  of  his  people, 
to  provide  them  both  with  the  splendors  and  conveniences 
of  life,  to  promote  human  intercourse  and  brotherhood,  and  to 
make  material  blessings  the  types,  accompaniments,  and  ma- 
chinery to  dispense  even  higher  blessings  than  these.  It 
seems  to  me  that,  in  olden  times,  the  good  merchants  of  Lon- 
don city  have  intelligibly  felt  all  this,  and  laid  it  to  heart.  We 
know,  too,  that  the  line  of  like-minded,  true  successors  has 
never  failed.  I  feel  this  when  I  stand  on  one  of  the  London 
bridges  and  look  back  on  the  space  occupied  by  what  is  called 
the  city.  How  grandly  looms  the  vast  cathedral  dome,  giv- 
ing to  that  vast  congeries  of  streets  and  houses  its  unity  and 
central  point !  How,  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  city — 


2io  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

which,  when  examined,  are  far  from  being  extensive — rises  the 
forest  of  spires  and  towers  grouped  around  the  cathedral 
mother-church !  Look  at  the  history  of  that  cathedral,  of 
those  many  churches,  of  the  great  civic  companies,  of  the  vast 
municipal  charities,  and  you  will  comprehend  the  liberal-hand- 
ed, disinterested  character  of  the  Christian  merchant,  such  as 
was  Gresham  and  many  of  Gresham's  compatriots.  I  think 
of  Barzillai,  that  man  of  very  great  substance,  so  true  to  God 
and  loyal  to  David,  and  of  Araunah,  who  "  as  a  king  gave  unto 
the  king."  At  times  we  read  sorrowfully  of  many  blots  upon 
London's  fair  civic  shield,  and  quiet  people,  content  with  food 
and  raiment,  wonder  at  the  maddening  thirst  for  wealth  ;  but 
the  recollections  of  such  men  as  Thornton  and  Henry  Hoare 
are  fresh  upon  us,  and  we  rejoice  that  Christian  England  has 
still  many  a  Christian  merchant. 

There  is  something,  also,  that  is  stately  and  noble  about  the 
merchants.  They  carry  their  rank  on  their  thoughtful  fore- 
heads, and  in  their  gesture  and  bearing.  Recall  their  portraits 
by  Vandyke  and  Titian,  in  the  burgomasters  of  Amsterdam 
and  the  merchant  princes  of  Venice.  Such  were  veritable 
statesmen  and  Christians,  with  a  large  eye  for  the  rising  in- 
terests of  fair  republics,  with  a  large  eye  for  the  still  greater 
cause  of  God's  truth  in  the  earth.  I  love  to  think  of  the  Ve- 
netian merchant,  now  counting  up  his  bales  from  the  Indies 
and  his  spice-boxes  from  Surinam,  now  discoursing  with  his 
brother  merchants  on  the  Rialto,  or  walking  with  Eastern 
strangers  clad  in  their  ample  flowing  garbs  on  the  Piazzetta, 
and  anon  entertaining  high  questions  of  war  and  peace  and 
government ;  or,  amid  the  trophies  of  art  and  skill,  gathering 
beauty  and  genius  and  valor  to  the  music  and  feast  within 
the  illumination  of  some  sea-girt  marble  palace.  Amid  the 
merchants  of  Holland  the  genius  of  commerce  was  developed 
side  by  side  with  the  desperate  love  of  endangered  liberty  and 


THE    CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT.  21 1 

heroic  devotion  to  persecuted  truth.  Thus  have  I  deeply  feit 
in  moving  about  the  water-streets  of  Venice  and  Amsterdam, 
and  thus,  also,  on  the  silent  highway  which  is  really  London's 
greatest  street.  I  know  that  in  the  dingy  resorts  of  commerce 
are  also  men  who  will  endure  hardships  and  bear  arms  if  nec- 
essary ;  even  as  of  old,  in  perilous  times,  they  largely  gave  of 
their  substance,  and  were  willing  to  undergo  for  their  country 
the  ordeal  of  battle.  I  know  that  they  have  an  equal  devo- 
tion for  science  and  literature  and  art  as  the  great  Italian 
merchant  princes  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  and,  best  of  all,  I  know 
how  the  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad  in  many  hearts,  keeping 
within  due  limits  that  adverse  love  of  money,  and  prompting 
to  many  good  deeds  of  love,  in  Christ,  toward  man. 

A  work  was  published  some  years  ago  by  a  distinguished 
minister  of  religion,  the  Rev.  William  Arthur,  entitled  "  The 
Successful  Merchant."  It  is  exceedingly  well  written,  and 
the  subject  of  the  biography,  Mr.  William  Budgett,  of  Bristol, 
was  an  eminently  Christian  man,  with  a  very  decided  idiosyn- 
crasy of  his  own,  and  possessed  the  characteristics  of  a  true 
merchant  in  having  both  a  genius  for  getting  and  a  genius  for 
giving.  The  work  recalls  Dr.  Binney's  celebrated  little  book, 
"  Is  it  possible  to  make  the  best  of  both  worlds  ?"  Granting 
that  in  a  most  important  sense  this  inquiry  may  be  answered 
in  the  affirmative,  I  must  also  add,  that  for  myself  I  feel  an  in- 
stinctive objection  to  the  terms  of  the  question.  I  will  not  now 
go  into  my  reasons ;  if  my  readers  think  with  me,  I  believe 
that  those  reasons  will  not  be  slow  in  suggesting  themselves. 
Now  Mr.  Budgett  was  one  who  sought  to  make  the  best  of 
both  worlds,  and,  upon  the  whole,  I  think  he  actually  did  so  ; 
yet,  even  in  reading  his  biography,  where  things  are  naturally 
put  in  their  fairest  light,  I  think  I  see  that  he  fell  into  some 
mistakes  by  trying  to  make  the  very  most  of  this  world.  I 
hold  that  his  plan  of  selling  some  articles  at  cost  price,  or 


212  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


even  below  cost  price,  with  the  intention  that  customers  should 
be  attracted  to  his  store  in  the  belief  that  all  other  things 
were  equally  cheap,  was  un merchant-like.  It  ought  to  be  re- 
membered, perhaps,  that  Mr.  Budgett  was  for  many  years  a 
small  retail  dealer,  and  that  it  was  in  the  latter  half  of  his  life 
that  his  transactions  achieved  that  magnitude  which  made 
him  a  great  merchant.  Mr.  Budgett  exhibited  in  himself,  and 
demanded  from  others,  an  amount  of  energetic  endeavor  which 
was  abnormal  and  unhealthy.  A  man's  ordinary  work  must 
be  done  in  an  ordinary  way,  and  extraordinary  efforts  should 
be  reserved,  for  special  occasions.  He  was  intensely  ener- 
getic, and  his  eye  and  voice  rebuked  any  one  in  his  employ 
who  was  not  exhibiting  a  similar  degree  of  energy.  In  the 
words  of  his  biographer :  "  The  Successful  Merchant  had  lived 
too  fast.  His  master  energy,  which  had  crushed  so  many  dif- 
ficulties, had  been  doing  its  work  on  his  own  frame,  which 
soon  became  a  witness  that  over-activity  is  not  to  be  indulged 
without  shattering  a  man  at  last."  I  am  sure  that  there  is  a 
great  deal  too  much  of  this  trying  to  make  the  best  of  both 
worlds.  Mr.  Budgett  did  himself  a  great  deal  of  harm,  and 
must  have  done  a  great  deal  of  harm  to  others,  unless  they 
made  up  at  other  times  for  the  pressure  which  he  occasionally 
put  upon  them.  I  point  out  these  drawbacks,  and  with  this 
measure  of  exception  Mr.  Arthur's  "  Successful  Merchant" 
might  very  well  be  called  the  "  Christian  Merchant."  It  is 
very  instructive,  and  Mr.  Budgett  had  a  natural  nobleness  and 
an  abounding  charity  which  go  very  far  toward  carrying  out 
the  idea  of  the  highest  type  of  this  character. 

A  distinction  is  generally  drawn  between  the  merchant  and 
the  retailer.  The  ancient  Greek  looked  upon  retailing  with 
intense  dislike,  and  even  with  contempt  and  loathing.  Napo- 
leon, with  the  same  heathenish  feeling,  spoke  of  us  as  a  nation 
of  shop-keepers.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  Napoleon  failed  to 


THE   CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT. 


213 


distinguish  between  the  merchant  and  the  shop-keeper ;  but, 
looking  fully  into  the  matter,  I  think  that  this  distinction  might 
be  reduced  to  so  small  a  point  of  difference  that  it  can  hardly 
hold.  Yet  there  are  very  mournful  facts  which  affix  a  stigma 
upon  retail  business  from  which  merchant  business  is  com- 
paratively free.  Mr.  Hughes  once  spoke  to  his  constituents, 
with  the  honest  freedom  which  so  well  became  him,  of  the 
amount  of  fraudulent  dealing  with  customers  that  prevailed  in 
Lambeth  ;  and  I  saw  a  newspaper  paragraph  the  other  day  to 
the  effect  that,  in  the  district  of  Newington  alone,  upward  of 
a  hundred  tradesmen  had  been  fined  for  the  false  weight  and 
the  false  measure.  Yet  the  false  weight  and  the  false  measure 
are  abominations  to  the  Lord  !  Their  use  is,  indeed,  to  elim- 
inate Christianity  from  trade,  and  also  to  eliminate  such  trades- 
people from  Christ's  kingdom.  The  true  merchant  loves  the 
measure  shaken  together  and  pressed  down  and  running  over. 
It  is  immaterial  to  ask  whether  to  the  merchant  or  to  the  re- 
tailer is  to  be  attributed  the  adulterated  lime-juice  which  de- 
stroys the  poor  mariners  on  long  voyages,  the  imposition  about 
stores  which  did  so  much  mischief  to  our  brave  soldiers  in  the 
Crimea,  the  cheats  in  connection  with  the  preserved  meats 
that  starved  the  heroic  explorers  who  shared  Sir  John  Frank- 
lin's last  and  fatal  expedition.  This  is  the  exhibition  of  what- 
ever is  vilest  in  the  most  fraudulent  petty  trader.  Adultera- 
tion is  the  curse  of  English  trade.  I  once  knew  a  really  Chris- 
tian person  who  told  me  that  he  had  given  up  trade  for  a 
much  less  independent  position  in  life  from  the  sheer  impos- 
sibility of  making  a  livelihood  without  resorting  to  customary 
dishonest  shifts.  Yet  I  can  not  but  hope  that,  in  many  direc- 
tions, this  experiment  is  being  made  patiently  and  fairly,  and 
with  better  results.  I  can  not  believe  that  there  is  any  posi- 
tion of  life  where  the  grace  of  God  and  the  providence  of  God 
are  not  sufficient.  The  temptation  of  the  retailer  is  ten  times 


214 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


more  urgent  than  that  of  the  merchant,  and  is  incessant  and 
unvarying ;  and  so  much  greater,  therefore,  is  the  honor  and 
reward  of  one  who  holds  fast  to  his  integrity  toward  Heaven 
and  toward  man,  and  who  carries  into  the  lowliest  details  of 
the  humblest  business  the  great  moral  and  religious  qualities 
which  make  up  the  Christian  merchant. 

I  will  now  take  up  a  few  examples  of  the  Christian  merchant, 
using  the  word  in  a  large  sense,  leaving  to  another  paper  or 
another  pen  farther  remarks  on  our  humbler  merchant.  And, 
first,  who  is  not  familiar  with  the  glorious  character  of  the 
brothers  Cheeryble  in  "  Nicholas  Nickleby  ?"  and  who  was 
not  delighted  when  Mr.  Dickens  stated  that  these  were  not 
imaginary  characters,  but  people  in  real  life  ?  I  have  been 
given  to  understand  that  a  certain  Manchester  firm  was  delin- 
eated. Surely  Scott  must  have  often  met,  in  the  great  Scottish 
cities,  with  the  double  of  his  Baillie  Nicol  Jarvie  !  I  will,  how- 
ever, take  three  modern  examples  of  the  Christian  merchant 
respectively  of  the  last  century,  the  last  generation,  and  the 
last  few  years.  Any  one  of  these  would  afford  ample  scope 
for  a  separate  chapter,  but  I  will  gather  up 'the  salient  points 
which  I  desire  to  present,  and  the  reader  will  find  elsewhere 
fuller  information. 

The  character  of  Jonas  Hanway,  as  a  philanthropist,  was  so 
widely  known  and  appreciated  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life, 
that  his  remarkable  career  as  a  merchant  will  incur  some  risk 
of  being  overlooked.  Some  parts  of  his  career  have  been 
well  brought  out  by  Mr.  Smiles,  in  his  "  Self-Help,"  but  not, 
perhaps,  the  Christian  aspect  sufficiently.  Mr.  Hanway  en- 
gaged in  the  Russian  trade,  and  made  a  daring  attempt  to 
open  up  a  Persian  trade  by  the  Volga  and  the  Caspian.  In 
later  life  he  had  a  curious  device  on  his  carriage.  It  repre- 
sented a  man  dressed  in  a  Persian  habit,  just  landed  in  a 
storm  on  a  rough  coast,  leaning  on  his  sword  in  a  calm,  re- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT.  215 

signed  attitude.  In  the  background  was  depicted  a  boat 
tossed  about  by  billows,  and  in  the  foreground  an  armorial 
shield,  leaning  against  a  tree,  with  the  motto, "  Never  despair." 
This  represented  an  incident  in  his  own  career  on  the  Caspian 
Sea ;  and  his  published  travels  abound  with  records  of  similar 
striking  interest.  Having  made  a  moderate  fortune  at  St. 
Petersburg,  he  determined  to  retire  and  spend  the  rest  of  his 
life  in  his  own  country.  Hanway  always  retained  an  adequate 
idea  of  the  noble  profession  to  which  he  had  once  belonged. 
It  is  related  of  him  that  "  he  was  sometimes  seduced  into  an 
eulogium  on  the  usefulness  of  the  merchant,  a  character  for 
which  he  entertained  great  reverence."*  He  keenly  enjoyed 
the  pleasures  of  his  hardly  earned  retirement.  His  biographer 
quaintly  says  :  "  He  partook  willingly  of  the  joys  of  the  table, 
and  that  felicity  of  conversation  which  a  moderate  application 
to  the  bottle  excites  among  men  of  parts."  Yet  he  would  re- 
tire if  the  mirth  became  boisterous,  and  was  known  to  say  : 
"  My  companions  were  too  merry  to  be  happy,  or  to  let  me  be 
happy,  so  I  left  them."  He  commenced  a  career  of  incessant 
benevolence,  which  is  very  rarely  paralleled,  but  to  which  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  active  work  presents  a  close  approximation. 
There  was  hardly  any  religious  or  charitable  object,  or  any 
object  which  required  public  spirit,  in  which  he  was  not  large- 
ly concerned.  To  his  exertions  we,  in  some  measure,  owe  the 
proper  paving  and  lighting  of  the  London  streets,  and  he  was 
the  first  Englishman  who,  at  any  risk  of  stares,  had  the  moral 
courage  to  carry  an  umbrella.  But  his  exertions  and  liberal- 
ity were  mainly  devoted  to  charitable  and  religious  causes. 
We  have  need  of  a  Hanway  now  !  for  we  are  told  that  he  ex 
plored  the  miserable  and  unhealthy  habitations  of  the  parish 
poor,  and  exposed  his  lungs  to  the  pestilential  air  of  the  work- 

*  "  Remarkable  Occurrences  in  the  Life  of  Jonas  Hanway,  Esq.,"  etc., 
by  John  Pugh.     London,  1787. 


2i6  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

house  sick-wards,  procuring  a  complete  account  of  the  inter- 
nal management  of  every  work-house  in  London  and  its  neigh- 
borhood. Nor  was  this  all.  He  took  strenuous  means,  to  a 
large  extent  successfully,  to  check  the  frightful  mortality  among 
the  infants  of  the  London  parish  poor.  He  founded  the  Ma- 
rine Society  and  a  Magdalen  Asylum  ;  he  was  one  of  the  first 
who  looked  after  the  interests  of  English  and  African  blacks, 
in  the  case  of  the  negroes  and  chimney-sweepers'  boys,  and 
promoted,  by  every  means  in  his  power,  the  new  movement  of 
establishing  Sunday-schools.  A  complete  examination  of  his 
career  of  benevolence  would  almost  embrace  the  statistics  of 
Christian  effort  during  the  period  of  his  floruit.  Such  were 
the  beneficent  occupations  to  which  this  Christian  merchant 
devoted  the  long  mellow  evening  of  his  days.  His  character- 
istic cheerfulness  was  never  better  exhibited  than  in  his  last 
hours,  when  his  case  was  hopeless ;  his  last  recorded  word 
was  "  Christ." 

When  Jonas  Hanway  died,  Joshua  Watson  was  a  lad  of  fif- 
teen. He  had  just  left  a  school  in  the  city  designed  for  mer- 
chants' sons,  where  they  learned  book-keeping,  exchange,  and 
foreign  languages,  and  had  gone  into  his  father's  counting-house. 
His  father,  a  son  of  one  of  the  statesmen  of  the  Lake  coun- 
try, had  his  place  of  business,  as  a  wine-merchant,  on  Tower 
Hill,  and  afterward  at  16  Mincing  Lane.  Joshua  was  first  his 
father's  assiduous  assistant  and  afterward  his  partner.  When 
the  father  had  retired,  he  was  sought  out  and  requested  to  be- 
come a  partner  in  a  similar  house  in  Mark  Lane.  Here  he 
made  a  fortune,  principally  through  government  contracts, 
which  enabled  him  to  retire.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
editor  of  his  interesting  biography*  has  given  us  such  scanty 
details  of  his  mercantile  career.  Yet  the  biography  is  ex- 

*  "  Memoirs  of  Joshua  Watson,"  by  Archdeacon  Churton.  Second 
edition.  London  :  Parkers,  1863. 


THE    CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT.  217 

ceedingly  valuable.  There  is  hardly  a  page,  and  we  have 
looked  into  all  the  pages,  from  which  interesting  extracts 
might  not  be  culled.  Mr.  Watson  was  a  rigid  Churchman, 
and, 'to  state  our  impression  candidly,  there  was  something 
strait  and  sectarian  in  the  tone  of  his  Churchman  ship.  He 
lived  on  terms  of  the  closest  intimacy  and  affection  with  the 
highest  Church  dignitaries,  reminding  us  of  honest  Isaak  Wal- 
ton, to  whom,  in  several  respects,  he  bears  a  resemblance,  in 
his  love  of  the  Church  of  England,  his  intimacies  with  bishops, 
his  honest  business  ways,  his  simplicity,  and  his  goodness. 
When  the  great  crash  of  1825  happened,  Joshua  Watson  felt 
the  effects  severely,  and  was  crippled  for  life.  People  felt  for 
Watson  who  did  not  feel  much  for  the  rest,  for  they  knew 
that  the  blow  which  had  fallen  directly  upon  him  had  fallen 
indirectly  upon  the  charities  of  which  he  was  such  a  munifi- 
cent supporter.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (Manners- 
Sutton)  sent  for  him,  and,  with  faltering  voice  and  suffused 
eyes,  begged  to  be  allowed  to  do  any  thing  in  the  world  for 
him.  "Judge,"  said  the  archbishop  on  one  occasion  to  Mr. 
Baron  Park,  "  I  tell  you  I  could  not  love  that  man  more  were 
he  my  own  son."  Blomfield,  Bishop  of  London,  wrote  to  him 
to  use  all  the  money  he  had  at  his  banker's,  and  telling  him 
to  pledge  his  credit  as  far  as  it  would  go.  Watson  did  not 
avail  himself  of  either  offer,  but  we  may  well  envy  the  feelings 
with  which  the  Christian  merchant  would  receive  such  proofs 
of  affection  and  esteem.  We  need  scarcely  wonder  that  Joshua 
Watson  was  enthusiastic  about  bishops.  On  one  occasion  he 
wrote  to  the  Bishop  of  Durham  (Van  Mildert) :  "  How  little 
do  those  who  would  fain  make  more  equitable  distribution  of 
the  revenues  of  the  Church  know  of  the  manner  in  which  its 
largest  revenues  are  expended  !  Would  to  God,  without  of- 
fense to  Christian  humility,  the  plain,  unvarnished  tale  might 
be  fairly  told  in  the  ears  of  all  the  people !"  We  admit  this 

K 


2i8  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

testimony  with  great  pleasure,  but  we  are  still  on  the  side  of 
those  who  advocate  "  a  more  equitable  distribution  of  the  rev- 
enues of  the  Church."  Admitting  that  the  exceptions  are  nu- 
merous and  splendid,  we  strongly  suspect  that  the  "  plain,  un- 
varnished tale"  would,  upon  the  whole,  tell  a  very  different 
story  to  what  Watson  considered  it  might.  Watson  might 
speak,  indeed,  with  authority  in  the  case  of  Van  Mildert,  the 
most  munificent  of  the  prince-bishops  of  Durham.  We  can 
not  resist  the  pleasure  of  saying  a  few  words  about  Van  Mil- 
dert Watson  had  known  him  from  a  very  early  time.  Van 
Mildert  used  to  lodge  with  him  in  Mincing  Lane  when  he 
came  to  town,  and  subsequently  the  two  friends  kept  house 
together  in  Great  George  Street,  Westminster.  Van  Mildert, 
a  poor,  ardent  student,  having  taken  the  living  of  Farningham, 
fell  into  heavy  pecuniary  difficulties  in  consequence  of  being 
obliged  to  rebuild  his  house.  Joshua  Watson,  with  other 
friends,  took  the  whole  of  the  responsibility  upon  themselves. 
Van  Mildert  writes  a  touching  letter  on  the  subject :  "  The 
feeling  is,  in  some  respects,  a  very  painful  one,  and  occasions 
a  frequent  depression  of  spirits  which  I  am  unable  to  over- 
come. There  is  a  pleasure,  an  exquisite  one,  in  having  such 
friends ;  but  the  wound  given  to  the  spirit  of  independence, 
by  being  obliged  to  make  such  a  use  of  them,  is  not  easily 
healed.  It  has  been  my  misfortune  to  be  more  or  less  embar- 
rassed ever  since  I  have  been  a  beneficed  man,  and  every  ad- 
ditional benefice  has  brought  its  additional  burdens,  and  made 
me  more  embarrassed  than  before.  So  that,  in  spite  of  all 
the  friendly  helps  I  have  met  with,  I  still  am,  and  to  all  ap- 
pearance ever  shall  be,  a  necessitous  man."  It  is  delightful 
to  know  that  this  poor,  struggling  clergyman  eventually  be- 
came perhaps  the  richest  prelate  on  the  bench,  and  the  Uni- 
versity of  Durham,  and  a  thousand  private  instances,  bear 
testimony  to  his  spirit  of  incessant  charity.  Van  Mildert 


THE   CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT. 


219 


went  far  to  prove  Joshua  Watson's  theory.  So  did  that  most 
munificent  giver,  Bishop  Blomfield.  When  giving  munificent- 
ly to  Joshua  Watson's  darling  charity,  the  Clergy  Orphan 
School,  Bishop  Blomfield  said  that  he  was  not  disinterested, 
for  he  expected  his  own  children  would  have  to  come  to  it. 
We  have  not  far  to  go,  however,  before  we  see  a  very  different 
state  of  things.  In  this  biography  we  find  mention  of  the 
great  liberality  of  Bishop  Monk.  Let  any  praise  that  is  fairly 
due  be  fully  conceded.  Yet  this  bishop  left  a  quarter  of  a 
million  behind  him,  derived  from  the  revenues  of  his  see. 
We  altogether  deny  that  there  was  any  thing  apostolical  in 
this. 

Bishop  Blomfield,  on  the  occasion  of  Watson's  death,  said : 
"  I  use  the  word  venerated  as  most  truly  describing  the  senti- 
ment with  which  I  regarded  Mr.  Joshua  Watson.  He  was  the 
most  remarkable  instance  I  have  ever  personally  known  of  a 
Christian  man  devoting  all  the  faculties  with  which  God  had 
endowed  him,  and  a  very  large  portion  of  the  means,  which 
are  more  valuable  in  the  world's  estimate,  though  not  in  his, 
to  the  promotion  of  God's  glory  in  his  Church."  Unquestion- 
ably it  was  this  liberal,  expansive  bearing  of  the  merchant, 
when  added  to  the  graces  of  the  Christian  character,  which 
made  Watson  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  great  Church  societies 
for  so  many  years.  In  a  position  of  great  social  eminence,  he 
always  looked  back  on  the  old  trading-days.  "  He  often  called 
for  us,"  writes  a  relative,  "on  his  way  into  London;  and  one 
day  he  showed  us  the  house  which  had  once  been  his  in  Minc- 
ing Lane,  now  part  of  the  Commercial  Sale-rooms.  The  very 
counting-house  and  desk  which  he  used  to  occupy  alone  re- 
mained unaltered,  and  there  we  accompanied  him  to  receive  a 
dividend.  Another  day  we  accompanied  him  to  King's  Col- 
lege to  see  the  distribution  of  prizes  to  the  medical  students 
by  the  archbishop.  The  bishops  of  London  and  Lichfield,  Sir 


220  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

R.  H.  Inglis,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  were  also  there.  My  uncle  sat 
by  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  had  much  talk  with  him."  There  used 
to  be  the  most  brilliant  meetings  at  his  house  in  Park  Street. 
We  omit  the  imposing  list  of  Churchmen,  which  our  readers 
will  take  for  granted.  "  Of  the  legal  profession,  besides  his 
friends  Park  and  Richardson,  were  Chief-Justice  Tindal,  the 
venerable  Judge  Burton,  Judges  Patteson  and  Coleridge,  and 
Sir  William  Page  Wood.  From  the  medical  school  there  were 
the  Heberdens,  Barnsby  Cooper,  Dr.  Thomas  Watson,  and  one 
to  be  remembered  alike  as  a  Christian  philanthropist  and  able 
physician,  Dr.  Thomas  Todd.  There  was  admission  within 
the  threshold  to  many  whose  names  were  distinguished  in 
science,  such  as  Dr.  Whewell,  Professor  Sedgwick,  and  Charles 
Lyell,  the  geologist.  The  poets  Wordsworth  and  Southey  were 
here  to  be  heard  of  when  they  came  to  London  ;  and  here 
were  to  be  met  some  of  the  most  eminent  sons  of  art,  as  Sir 
Francis  Chantrey,  and  Lough,  Copley  Fielding,  and  George 
Robson."  The  force  of  goodness  and  force  of  character  had 
gathered  friends  around  the  retired  Christian  merchant  such 
as  are  denied  to  vulgar  rank  and  wealth.  Joshua  Watson 
survived  to  an  advanced  age,  living  latterly  in  comparative 
retirement,  waxing  riper  and  riper  in  the  Divine  life,  becom- 
ing more  and  more  like  a  little  child,  until  he  was  translated 
home  ;  "  it  might  be  said  of  him  before  his  translation,  he  had 
this  testimony,  that  he  pleased  God." 

On  the  5th  of  last  December,  there  died,  at  Leytonstone,  a 
very  eminent  example  of  the  Christian  merchant.  We  make 
a  few  notes  from  an  interesting  "  In  Memoriam"  article  which 
subsequently  appeared.*  William  Cotton  was  a  man  who  had 
the  very  highest  name  in  the  city  of  London,  a  man  of  astute 
character  in  business,  but  remarkable  even  beyond  his  remark- 
able commercial  position  for  his  charm  of  natural  character 
*  Guardian  of  Dec.  27,  1866. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT.  22l 

and  his  Christian  liberality.  He  was  one  of  a  family  of  ten, 
and  circumstances  not  permitting  him  to  take  holy  orders,  he 
entered  the  firm  of  Huddart  and  Co.,  where  he  subsequently 
became  one  of  the  principal  partners.  He  did  his  business 
strenuously.  He  had  a  positive  genius  for  engineering,  and 
was  a  friend  of  James  Watt.  He  was  associated  with  those 
who  first  sent  a  steamship  to  sea;  and  he  visited  our  great 
manufacturing  towns  to  see  how  power-loom  weaving  might  be 
adapted  to  the  heavier  fabric  of  navy  canvas.  He  did  away 
with  the  pestilent  system  in  the  East  End  of  London  of  paying 
the  mechanics  by  orders  on  publicans  on  Saturday  nights,  and 
substituted  Thursday  evening  payments  instead.  The  source 
of  information  to  which  we  have  alluded  says : 

"In  the  year  1821 — on  the  introduction  of  Mr.  Harman — he 
was  first  elected  a  director  of  the  Bank  of  England.  This  posi- 
tion he  occupied  for  forty-five  years,  only  retiring  in  March  last 
because  the  state  of  his  health  then  prevented  his  attending 
at  the  time  of  election.  Many  reforms  and  alterations  in  that 
great  establishment  were  due  to  his  own  sagacity  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  principles  of  finance,  and  also  to  his  clear 
perception  of  the  character  and  power  of  those  who  were 
working  with  him  or  under  him.  The  years  of  his  chief  labor 
there  were  1843-45,  during  which  he  filled  the  post  of  govern- 
or, at  the  time  when  the  present  Bank  Charter  was  framed 
by  the  late  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  latter  found  in  William  Cot- 
ton a  clear  and  honest  adviser,  decided  in  his  own  views,  with 
no  personal  interest  to  serve,  and  unsparing  in  his  labor.  In 
order  that  this  great  measure  might  be  carried  to  a  successful 
issue,  the  governor  of  the  bank,  William  Cotton,  was  constant- 
ly in  attendance  under  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons 
(not  being  himself  a  member  of  the  House),  in  order  that  Sir 
Robert  Peel  might  be  able  to  consult  him  on  any  doubtful 
point.  Often,  too,  in  the  middle  of  night  a  messenger  would 


222  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

come  to  Walwood  asking  for  further  information.  And  as  Sir 
Robert  was  happy  in  the  character  of  the  governor,  to  whose 
lot  it  fell  to  conduct  the  negotiation  on  behalf  of  the  bank,  so 
was  his  estimation  of  the  great  minister's  character  deep  and 
sincere,  and  none  more  truly  lamented  his  untimely  death. 
His  fellow-directors  of  the  bank  conferred  on  him  the  unprec- 
edented honor  of  a  third  election  as  governor,  in  order  that 
he  might  carry  out  to  its  conclusion  that  work  which  had  been 
begun  under  his  auspices.  It  was  at  this  period  also  that  the 
mechanical  bent  of  his  mind  showed  itself  in  full  power.  The 
necessity  of  weighing  all  the  gold  coinage  of  the  kingdom, 
much  of  which  had  become  light  through  use,  made  him  con- 
ceive the  possibility  of  doing  this  by  an  automaton  weighing- 
machine.  The  result  was  the  present  self-acting  weighing- 
machine,  far  exceeding,  not  only  in  rapidity,  but  in  accuracy, 
the  steadiest  and  most  practiced  hand,  and  it  is  still  at  work 
at  the  bank,  at  the  mint,  and  in  many  local  establishments, 
just  as  it  was  at  first  designed  by  the  governor  of  the  bank. 
It  was  exhibited  at  the  Exhibition  of  1851,  and  of  it  one  of  the 
profoundest  reasoners  of  our  day  declared  that  it  seemed  to 
him  the  perfection  of  mechanical  ingenuity — that  the  machine 
itself  seemed  almost  to  think  during  the  pause  which  ensued 
between  the  reception  of  the  sovereign  into  the  scale  and  its 
delivery  into  its  appropriate  place,  either  as  a  light  or  full- 
weight  coin.  The  machine  has  been  appropriately  named 
'The  Governor.'" 

But  Cotton's  brightest  achievements  were  beyond  these. 
He  devoted  himself  earnestly  to  the  practical  Christian  work 
of  the  London  hospitals.  The  London  Hospital,  St.  Thomas's, 
Guy's,  and  King's,  all  owed  something  to  his  strenuous  efforts. 
The  same  was  the  case  with  churches  and  schools.  The  great 
Church  societies,  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel, 
the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge,  and  the  Na' 


THE   CHRISTIAN  MERCHANT.  223 

tional,  found  him,  as  they  found  Joshua  Watson,  a  very  pillar 
of  strength.  As  a  gentleman  of  country  estate,  he  served  as 
sheriff  of  the  county  and  chairman  of  quarter  sessions.  From 
the  time  of  his  first  entering  business  he  made  a  resolution, 
which  he  faithfully  kept,  of  devoting  one-tenth  of  his  profits  to 
pious  and  charitable  purposes.  God  blessed  his  servant  in 
this.  His  gains  were  large,  and  his  commission  fund,  as  he 
called  it,  was  large  correspondingly.  "There  was  no  exulta- 
tion in  what  he  had  accomplished  during  a  long  life,  but  re- 
gret that  he  had  not  done  more;  no  trust  in  his  own  good 
deeds  or  boundless  charities,  but  earnest  faith  in  the  merits  of 
his  Saviour."  He  survived  to  his  eightieth  year,  as  his  father 
had  done  before  him. 

Several  common  characteristics  will  be  noted  in  these  ex- 
amples of  the  Christian  merchant.  Each  worked  strenuously 
and  successfully  at  his  business ;  each  had  the  moderation 
and  good  sense  to  retire  after  a  competent  fortune  was  gained, 
while  he  had  still  an  unblunted  capacity  for  knowledge  and 
enjoyment,  and  secured  a  breathing-time  of  repose  before  he 
was  called  away ;  each  purified  and  elevated  the  society  in 
which  he  moved,  and  reflected  honor  on  the  calling  which  re- 
flected honor  upon  him ;  each  devoted  energy  and  wealth  to 
the  good  of  his  fellow-creatures  and  the  glory  of  God.  Such 
men  carried  the  peculiar  sense,  earnestness,  and  insight  of 
their  calling  into  the  larger  matters  that  included  it,  and  went 
far  beyond.  They  looked  upon  their  immortal  existence  as  a 
whole,  and  not  alone  upon  its  earthly  and  temporary  part. 
They  were  not  influenced  by  narrow  considerations  of  mere 
profit  and  loss,  but  regarded  their  example  to  children  and 
friends,  the  testimony  of  an  approving  conscience,  the  sweet- 
ness of  a  good  and  honored  name,  the  ratification  of  their 
deeds  by  a  righteous  Judge  at  the  last.  They  savingly  solved 
that  greatest  problem  of  loss  and  gain — how  far  it  would  profit 


224 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


a  man  to  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul.  With 
all  their  gettings  they  got  understanding,  and  valued  wisdom 
as  being  in  worth  beyond  rubies.  They  sought  diligently  in 
their  calling  for  goodly  pearls,  and  they  found  the  Pearl  of 
Great  Price,  and  held  all  worldly  things  as  dross  compared  to 
that,  their  best  and  only  abiding  treasure. 


RISING  MEN. 


225 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Rising  Men. 

I  THINK  nothing  is  more  pleasant  than  to  see  a  good  man 
really  rising  in  the  world.  Slowly  but  surely  they  seem  to 
find  their  way  to  the  front  at  last.  "  Slow  rises  worth  by  pov- 
erty depressed,"  wrote  old  Johnson,  whose  personal  history 
barbed  the  line.  One  day  I  went  to  visit  the  shop  of  a  worthy 
apothecary  to  which  I  was  wont  to  resort.  The  apothecary 
had  disappeared.  He  rigorously  confined  himself  to  his  pri- 
vate residence,  where  he  saw  his  patients,  and,  though  the  shop 
was  his,  he  declined  to  pass  its  portals.  Or  to  go  a  grade 
higher  in  the  profession,  I  remember  a  struggling  surgeon, 
who  managed  to  struggle  on,  certainly,  which  is  saying  some- 
thing in  these  hard  competition  times,  but  that  was  all.  I 
visited  him  the  other  day  after  the  lapse  of  years.  A  carriage 
and  pair  were  standing  at  the  door,  and  I  soon  found  that  he 
was  overwhelmed  with  work  of  a  highly  remunerative  kind ; 
and,  although  I  am  sure  that,  as  is  the  nature  of  "  the  beloved 
physician,"  no  case  of  necessity  or  poverty  would  appeal  to 
him  in  vain,  yet  he  had  given  up  all  the  lower  work  of  his  pro- 
fession, and  no  professional  work  would  be  undertaken  which, 
in  the  exclusive  sense,  would  not  "pay."  The  other  night  I 
went  to  see  an  old  college  friend.  He  told  me  with  a  par- 
donable glee  that  he  had  been  walking  down  Whitehall  with  a 
cabinet  minister.  The  point  might  seem  a  trivial  one,  but  to 
him  it  represented  a  great  social  success.  And  when  I  called 
on  my  friend  at  his  office  and  saw  the  people  with  whom  he 

Kz 


226  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

was  surrounded,  and  found  that  I  had  to  wait  in  his  ante- 
room, I  began  fully  to  understand  that  my  friend  was  a  rising 
man.  Very  glad  am  I  to  find  that  my  friend,  the  young  solic- 
itor, has  put  on  another  clerk,  has  joined  a  good  club,  and  no 
longer  lives  in  chambers,  but  has  a  box  in  the  country.  He 
gets  back  as  a  bird  to  its  bird-cage  at  nightfall.  Very  glad  am 
I  to  see  that  my  friend  the  merchant  stays  at  home  after  break- 
fast half  an  hour  later,  and  drives  down  in  a  brougham  to  his 
place  of  business.  When  I  visit  at  their  houses  they  tell  me 
when  it  is  time  to  go  out  and  make  "  some  filthy  lucre,"  and 
announce  their  intention  of  retiring  as  soon  as  they  have  made 
"  a  little  pile." 

There  are  some  men  who,  so  to  speak,  are  bound  to  get  on. 
When  they  have  planted  their  feet  on  the  first  rung  of  a  ladder 
they  must  needs  mount.  A  solicitor-general  in  the  course  of 
nature  should  become  lord  chancellor  or  a  chief  at  least. 
When  a  counsel  has  shown  that  he  has  some  specific  gift  in 
some  particular  class  of  cases,  say  patents  or  election  business, 
or  winning  the  hearts  of  juries,  he  must  rise.  When  a  man 
has  been  private  chaplain  to  a  bishop,  or  head-master  of  a 
school,  or  a  regius  professor,  he  is  on  the  groove  of  advance- 
ment. The  Saturday  Review  said  of  the  late  Dr.  Longley  that 
he  was  a  safe  card,  and  the  Government  played  him  again  and 
again !  As  a  Westminster  boy  he  was  called  "  the  rose  among 
thorns,"  and  he  passed  on  from  bishopric  to  bishopric  with 
universal  appreciation.  Canon  Melvill,  who  died  the  other 
day,  was  an  example  of  a  man  who  in  orderly  sequence  passed 
from  grade  to  grade  in  the  minor  ranges  of  his  profession, 
being  a  man,  however,  who  would  have  done  honor  to  the 
highest.  There  was  a  time  when  Canon  Melvill  was  the  most 
remarkable  man  of  his  profession.  All  who  aspired  to  be 
orators  crowded  to  hear  him,  and  I  have  even  heard  that  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons  endeavored  to  transplant'his 


RISING  MEN. 


227 


peculiar  style.  A  schoolboy  at  Christ's  Hospital,  a  sizar  at  St. 
John's,  he  became  not  only  a  fellow  of  Peterhouse,  but  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  influences  of  Cambridge,  an  influence 
which  continued  to  expand  and  bless  when  removed  to  the 
wider  circle  of  London.  Of  late  years  popular  preaching  has 
very  much  declined  in  the  popular  estimation.  People  to 
whom  it  was  once  almost  the  sole  intellectual  stimulus,  as  well 
as  religious,  now  study  the  daily  papers,  and  find  many  op- 
portunities for  cultivating  the  pleasures  of  the  mind.  Perhaps 
religion  benefits  by  the  change.  The  deepest  needs  of  the 
soul  will  still  seek  satisfaction,  but  religious  instruction  will 
not  now  be  so  much  confounded  with  the  rhetoric  of  merely 
popular  oratory.  In  religion,  as  in  many  other  departments 
of  human  life,  there  will  be  room  to  treat  a  great  subject  intel- 
lectually, and  to  bring  it  into  connection  with  all  the  lines  of 
thought  that  move  contemporary  lives  and  opinions,  and  con- 
stitute what  is  sometimes  vaguely  called  "  the  spirit  of  the 
age."  There  will  not  fail  a  succession  of  men  competent  to 
deal  with  such  subjects,  or  a  succession  of  disciples  to  take  a 
living  interest  in  them.  But  that  class  of  rising  men  who  may 
be  described  as  popular  preachers,  who  attracted  immense 
audiences,  and  rose  through  their  gift,  will  now  probably  have 
a  much  more  limited  sphere.  The  biographies  of  eminent 
preachers  will  be  fewer  and  less  varied.  Any  apparent  loss 
that  may  result  would  probably  be  compensated  in  other  ways. 
It  has  often  been  said  that  there  are  some  persons  who 
have  a  natural  tendency  to  rise,  and  others  to  fall.  If  you 
take  two  men  and  put  them  down  in  precisely  similar  circum- 
stances in  the  streets  of  London,  it  has  often  been  said  that  in 
a  short  time  one  will  be  in  obscurity  and  distress,  and  the 
other  will  be  prosperous  and  famous.  A  man  will,  perhaps 
say  that  it  is  all  luck,  like  the  late  emperor  of  the  French  at 
Wilhelmshohe,  that  he  has  been  "betrayed  by  fortune."  But, 


228  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

without  denying  that  disturbing  and  confusing  element  of 
chance,  we  must  nevertheless  reduce  it  within  much  smaller 
limits  than  is  ordinarily  supposed,  and  resolve  it  into  a  ques- 
tion of  man's  faculties  and  a  proper  use  of  them.  You  must 
first  supply  a  man  with  tools,  and  then  test  his  capacity  to 
use  them.  I  heard  of  a  young  fellow  of  fortune  who  was  anx- 
ious to  become  an  engineer.  He  found,  however,  that  the 
great  engineering  establishment  which  he  considered  the  best, 
or  at  least  the  best  for  his  purposes,  refused  to  receive  any 
apprentices,  even  with  the  largest  premium.  Our  would-be 
engineer  was  resolved  not  to  be  disappointed.  He  sought  for 
employment  in  the  yard  as  a  common  workman,  and  was  en- 
gaged at  a  pound  a  week.  He  dressed  and  fared  as  a  com- 
mon workman,  and  was  always  among  the  first,  at  five  or  six 
in  the  morning,  when  the  gates  were  opened.  In  this  way  he 
obtained  a  very  complete  notion  of  the  business. 

I  read,  the  other  day,  an  interesting  address  by  a  lawyer  to 
his  brethren  in  the  law,*  which  shows  the  kind  of  means  by 
which  rising  men  rise  : 

"  A  knowledge  of  foreign  languages  is  a  most  useful  branch 
of  knowledge  for  an  attorney.  When  I  was  young  this  knowl- 
edge was  little  esteemed,  and  it  was  only  here  and  there  that 
a  parent  of  unusual  foresight  sent  his  son  to  France  or  Ger- 
many for  education.  In  these  cases,  too,  the  son  was  usually 
destined  for  manufacturing,  commercial,  or  mercantile  pur- 
suits. Fifty  years  ago  a  knowledge  of  foreign  languages  was 
rare  in  our  profession,  and  Mr.  Lavie,  a  London  solicitor,  who 
had  been  sent  to  France  when  young  to  recover  his  health, 
made  a  large  practice  and  a  large  fortune  principally  by  his 
knowledge,  of  French.  This  knowledge  is  not  now  scarce, 
and  a  solicitor  of  my  acquaintance  in  London  speaks  both 
German  and  French  with  the  same  ease  and  fluency  with 
*  The  late  Mr.  Glynn,  of  Newcastle. 


RISING   MEN. 


229 


which  he  speaks  English.  This  has  brought  him  practice, 
and  in  some  actions  which  he  has  had  to  prosecute  in  the 
French  courts  he  has  actually  gone  over  to  France,  and  by 
the  'comity  of  nations,'  which  has  more  weight  in  France 
than  in  England,  he  has  been  permitted  to  argue  his  cases 
and  conduct  his  evidence,  vivd,  voce,  in  the  French  court. 

"  People  may  call  an  attorney  an  attorney,  as  we  call  a  dog 
a  dog,  but  there  are  as  many  kinds  of  the  one  animal  as  there 
are  of  the  other.  An  old  solicitor  in  Newcastle,  in  a  debate  at 
the  meeting  of  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of  New- 
castle, declared  that  if  he  found  a  clerk  of  his  reading  a  novel 
he  would  discharge  the  culprit  on  the  spot.  Now  can  this 
plan  of  treatment  be  considered  as  judicious  ?  An  attorney 
who  knows  nothing  but  law  is  at  a  disadvantage  with  another 
who  knows  the  world.  Let  us,  by  all  means,  get  as  much 
of  history,  biography,  voyages,  and  travels  as  we  can  :  proc- 
esses of  manufacture,  ingenious  inventions,  marvelous  works 
of  man — say,  knowledge  of  places  and  things.  Don't  let  us 
follow  the  example  of  Sir  Arthur  Hazlewood,  a  young  Scots- 
man of  old  family,  invented  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  went  to 
the  bar,  but  rinding,  in  an  action  by  a  tallow-chandler,  that  he 
was  expected  to  defile  his  mouth  with  filthy  terms  of  trade, 
threw  up  his  brief,  and  left  the  profession  in  disgust.  Both 
in  patent  laws  and  in  many  others  you  will  find  terms  of 
trade,  of  manufactures,  or  of  seamanship  most  useful  knowl- 
edge. But  of  all  useful  knowledge,  knowledge  of  men,  of  hu- 
man nature — knowledge  of  the  world,  as  it  is  called — is  the 
most  useful  of  all." 

The  same  writer  gives  an  example  of  the  way  in  which  le- 
gal gentlemen  contrive  to  rise  : 

"  The  advice  given  by  a  very  old  London  attorney  to  a  friend 
of  mine,  on  leaving  the  London  Agency  Office  to  come  to 
Newcastle,  was  sound,  though  strange — '  Don't  sit  too  much 


230 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


in  your  office;  walk  about,  and  let  the  people  see  you.'  Ad- 
vertising is  not  supposed  to  be  followed  by  our  profession, 
but  here,  within  certain  reasonable  limits,  is  a  short  and  sim- 
ple way  of  advertising.  A  client  is  not  likely  to  employ  an 
attorney  whom  he  never  saw,  and  the  highest  praise  bestowed 
by  a  London  attorney  upon  his  partner,  in  my  hearing,  was 
this  :  '  He  never  goes  round  the  corner  but  he  brings  in  a 
client.'  '  There  are  ten  people  who  can  do  business,  for  one 
who  can  get  business,'  was  the  remark  to  me  of  a  London  at- 
torney, of  fourscore  years  and  five ;  and  I  lay  before  you  the 
results  of  experience  longer  than  my  own,  that  you  may  not 
make  the  mistake  into  which  so  many  young  attorneys  fall  at 
their  start  in  life,  that  they  are  not  to  move,  but  let  people 
come  to  them.  In  theory — yes;  but  in  practice  you  must 
meet  business  half  way." 

It  has  often  been  said  that  God  helps  those  who  help  them- 
selves. Nothing  succeeds  like  success,  and  it  often  happens 
that  those  who,  by  their  own  exertions,  have  reached  the 
highest  pinnacle  of  success  have  received  extraordinary  favors 
from  Dame  Fortune  when  they  have  been  securely  placed  be- 
yond her  power.  We  take  an  excerpt  from  the  unpublished 
autobiography  of  Lord  Kingsdown  : 

"  In  1830  an  event  happened  which  has  decided  the  courp" 
of  my  subsequent  life.  Sir  Robert  Leigh,  who  had  retiree 
from  Parliament  in  1820,  and  had  amassed,  by  prudence  ana 
frugality,  a  very  large  property  in  addition  to  his  patrimonial 
estate,  though  he  had  been  always  fond  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cooke, 
had  kept  up  no  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  the  family,  and,  in- 
deed, had  apparently  an  aversion  to  them.  The  family  estates 
had  been  settled  by  his  father,  in  default  of  issue  of  his  own 
body,  on  the  issue  of  his  own  brother  (my  grandfather),  and 
would  have  been  divided,  therefore  (if  the  limitation  had  taken 
effect),  among  his  five  daughters,  of  whom  my  mother  was  the 


RISING  MEN.  231 


eldest.  This  settlement  had  greatly  annoyed  Sir  Robert,  and 
indisposed  him  toward  those  who  had  the  chance  of  benefiting 
by  it.  In  1828  or  1829  he  quarrejed  with  the  rector  of  Wigan, 
who  claimed  tithes  of  the  Hindley  Hall  estate,  which  Sir  Rob- 
ert insisted  was  covered  by  a  farm  modus.  The  rector  filed 
a  bill  in  Chancery,  and  set  down  his  cause  at  the  Rolls.  Sir 
Robert  endeavored  to  retain  Bickersteth,  and  was  very  angry 
when  he  found  that  he  was  retained  on  the  other  side.  Still 
greater  was  Sir  Robert's  annoyance  when  he  was  told  I  was 
next  in  business  in  court,  and  that  he  must  engage  me.  He 
submitted,  however,  though  I  believe  with  a  very  bad  grace; 
said  I  was  a  mere  boy,  and,  in  short,  considered  his  case  as 
sacrificed.  When  his  attorney,  Mr.  Gaskell,  who  was  a  perfect 
stranger  to  me,  came  to  consultation,  I  observed  that  I  be- 
lieved I  had  some  interest,  or  might  have  some  interest  in  the 
estate;  when  he  informed  me  that  the  entail  had  been  found 
faulty,  and  that  Sir  Robert  had  barred  the  remainder  after  the 
limitations  to  his  own  issue  and  his  brother  and  their  issue 
male.  This  did  not  much  disturb  me.  On  looking  into  the 
evidence  I  found  that  there  was  a  fatal  blot  in  our  case.  In 
order  to  maintain  a  farm  modus  it  was  necessary  to  state  pre- 
cisely what  lands  were  covered  by  it,  and  if  any  were  improp- 
erly included  or  improperly  omitted,  the  modus  was  held  to 
be  ill  laid,  and  a  decree  went  against  the  defendant.  On 
looking  at  an  old  map  of  the  estate  I  found  that  a  small  piece 
of  land  taken  in  from  Pennington  Green  some  fifty  years  be- 
fore was  included  in  our  answer  as  part  of  the  ancient  farm. 
The  only  chance  for  us  was  that  the  blot  might  not  be  hit." 
Lord  Kingsdown  proceeds  to  tell  how  he  fared  in  the  suit, 
and  eventually  succeeded  to  his  kinsman's  immense  posses- 
sions. 

We  will,  for  our  next  instances,  take  the  fortunes  of  the 
founder  of  the  house  of  Phipps,  and  the  founder  of  the  house 


232 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


of  Petty,  which  have  culminated,  respectively,  in  the  marquis- 
ates  of  Normanby  and  Lansdowne.  They  are  remarkable  in- 
stances of  industrial  success,  combined  with  a  very  fair  pro- 
portion of  luck.  Not  altogether  dissimilar  would  be  the  for- 
tunes of  the  house  of  Strutt,  which  appropriately  culminated 
in  the  peerage  of  Belper. 

The  founder  of  the  house  of  Phipps,  "  this  our  Phipps,"  as 
his  biographer  calls  him,  was  born  in  an  obscure  part  of  New 
England,  the  son  of  a  gunsmith,  who  rejoiced  in  twenty-five 
other  children  besides  the  future  great  man.  From  his  ear- 
liest days  we  are  told  that  he  had  an  unaccountable  impulse 
on  his  mind  hinting  to  him  that  he  was  born  for  great  matters. 
He  was,  indeed,  always  noted  for  one  mark  of  real  greatness 
— a  greatness  independent  of  material  success — namely,  that 
he  was  of  "a  most  incomparable  generosity."  Yet  at  twenty- 
three  he  was  only  a  working  carpenter,  who,  having  the  good 
luck  to  marry  a  well-to-do  young  widow,  was  able  to  set  up  in 
business  on  his  own  account.  He  assured  his  incredulous 
wife  that  on  some  far-distant  prosperous  day  "he  should  be 
owner  of  a  fair  brick  house  in  the  Green  Lane  of  North  Bos- 
ton ;  and  that,  it  may  be,  this  would  not  be  all  that  the  prov- 
idence of  God  would  bring  him  to."  His  first  speculations, 
however,  despite  his  presage  of  good,  turned  out  to  be  alto- 
gether of  a  disastrous  character.  In  the  course  of  his  busi- 
ness of  ship-building  he  heard  a  rumor  that  somewhere  off  the 
Bahamas  there  was  a  wreck  that  contained  a  mighty  treasure. 
From  ship-building  he  had  turned  sailor,  and  now,  with  a  gen- 
uine adventurous  spirit,  he  went  to  England  to  see  if  he  could 
find  any  encouragement  at  Whitehall  for  his  scheme  of  recov- 
ering the  wreck.  After  much  waiting,  he  was  at  last  furnish- 
ed with  a  vessel,  and  sailed  forth  upon  his  adventurous  quest. 
But  precious  things  do  not  reveal  themselves  all  at  once  to 
the  seekers.  His  sailors  rose  in  mutiny  against  him,  and  when 


RISING  MEN. 


233 


he  had  replaced  them  by  a  new  set,  these  proved  so  unsafe 
that  he  thought  it  best  to  return  to  England;  yet  before  he 
did  so,  being  off  Hispaniola,  he  contrived,  "  by  the  policy  of 
his  address,"  to  worm  out  of  a  very  old  man  some  further  in- 
formation about  the  lost  treasure-ship.  When  he  returned  to 
the  Court  of  England,  of  course  the  old  story  of  incredulity, 
delay,  and  disappointment  was  once  more  repeated.  The 
Duke  of  Albemarle,  however,  with  one  or  two  others,  charmed 
with  his  conversation  and  address,  were  willing  to  run  a  risk ; 
and  so  he  was  enabled  to  "set  sail  for  the  fishing-ground 
which  had  been  so  well  baited  half  a  hundred  years  before." 
He  had  with  him  a  tender,  and  when  he  got  to  Port  de  la 
Plata,  with  infinite  pains  he  fashioned  out  of  a  cotton-tree  a 
canoe,  or  "periaga,"  which  would  carry  eight  or  ten  oars. 
His  device  was  that  the  "periaga"  should  explore  the  dan- 
gerous shoals  which  would  rise  within  two  or  three  feet  of  the 
surface  of  the  water,  and  yet  were  so  steep  that  a  vessel  strik- 
ing against  them  would  sink  down  countless  fathoms  deep 
into  the  ocean.  These  shoals  were  known  by  the  emphatic 
title  of  the  Boilers. 

"  One  day  the  men  were  out  in  the  'periaga,'  peering  about, 
as  they  had  done  on  many  a  fruitless  day  before.  One  of 
them,  gazing  down  into  the  depths  of  the  clear  water,  saw  the 
marine  plant  called  the  sea-feather  wafting  out  of  a  rock,  and 
desired  one  of  the  Indian  divers  to  pluck  it  up,  that  they  might 
not  return  altogether  empty-handed.  The  diver  brought  up 
the  feather,  and  he  also  brought  them  back  a  marvelous  story. 
He  said  that  close  by  the  rock  where  he  found  the  sea-feather 
there  were  numbers  of  great  guns  lying  about.  The  men  were 
utterly  astonished,  and  told  the  Indian  to  dive  again.  This 
time  he  brought  up  a  large  lump  of  silver,  worth  some  hundred 
pounds.  They  now  fixed  a  buoy  to  mark  the  spot,  and  rowed 
back  to  the  ship.  They  kept  their  discovery  secret  for  a 


234 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


time,  putting  aside  "  the  sow  of  silver"  in  the  cabin  until  the 
captain  should  notice  it.  "  At  last  he  saw  it.  Seeing  it,  he 
cried  out  with  some  agony, '  Why,  what  is  this  ?  Whence  comes 
this  ?'  And  then,  with  changed  countenances,  they  told  him 
how  and  where  they  got  it.  '  Then,'  said  he,  '  thanks  be  to 
God,  we  are  made  !' " 

He  might,  indeed,  well  say  so.  That  "  fair  brick  house  in 
the  Green  Lane  "  was  assured  to  him.  They  took  up  thirty- 
two  tons  of  silver.  Over  the  silver  had  grown  a  crust  like 
lime-stone,  several  inches,  which  they  had  to  break  through 
with  instruments,  "  when  whole  bushels  of  rusty  pieces  of 
eight  would  come  tumbling  out."  Moreover,  they  found  great 
quantities  of  gold,  pearls,  and  precious  stones.  The  value  of 
the  whole  was  close  on  three-hundred  thousand  pounds.  And 
now  dreadful  apprehensions  seized  upon  the  mind  of  "  this 
our  Phipps,"  at  last  so  lucky.  He  was  afraid  lest  the  sailors 
should  rise  in  mutiny  and  take  the  treasure  for  themselves. 
He  made  all  sorts  of  vows, "  if  the  Lord  would  carry  him  safe 
home  to  England  with  what  he  had  now  given  him  to  suck  of 
the  abundance  of  the  seas  and  of  the  treasures  hid  in  the 
sands."  He  came  home  safely,  and  the  Duke  of  Albemarle, 
to  whom  the  lion's  share  of  the  spoil  fell,  certainly  had  his 
"  fling  of  luck."  Phipps's  share  was  sixteen  thousand  pounds  ; 
and  the  duke,  with  much  gallantry,  presented  him  with  a  gold 
cup  for  his  wife,  worth  a  thousand  pounds.  The  king  con- 
ferred on  him  the  honor  of  knighthood.  So  great  was  now 
his  reputation  for  courage  and  ability  that  James  II.  would 
willingly  have  retained  him  in  England;  but  his  heart  was 
set  upon  that  "  fair  green  house,"  and,  with  the  title  of  High 
Sheriff  of  New  England,  he  returned  home  to  set  about  con- 
structing it.  On  his  way  home  he  again  revisited  the  scene 
of  the  wreck,  and  made  some  very  handsome  pickings  there. 

The  career  of  Sir  William  Phipps  henceforth  becomes  his- 


RISING  MEN. 


235 


torical.  On  his  return  home  he  caused  himself  to  be  christ- 
ened, being  then  thirty-nine.  "  I  have  divers  times,"  he  said, 
"  been  in  danger  of  my  life,  and  I  have  been  brought  to  see 
that  I  owe  my  life  to  Him  that  has  given  a  life  so  often  to  me." 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  much  of  his  religion  henceforth  con- 
sisted in  burning  harmless  old  ladies  whom,  as  high  sheriff, 
he  considered  to  be  guilty  of  witchcraft.  His  ruling  idea 
henceforth  was  the  conquest  of  Canada ;  and  though  the  arm- 
ament which  he  conducted  against  the  French  was  unsuc- 
cessful, yet  he  paved  the  way  for  its  eventual  subjugation. 
His  intense  devotion  to  his  wife,  who  bore  him  no  children,  is 
a  touchingly  beautiful  feature  in  his  character.  He  died  at 
the  comparatively  early  age  of  forty-five.  Before  his  death 
we  find  him  brought  into  connection  with  one  Constantine 
Phipps.  This  gentleman  was,  most  probably,  his  nephew, 
through  one  of  his  one-and-twenty  brothers.  To  him  also  he 
probably  bequeathed  the  bulk  of  his  fortune.  This  Constan- 
tine Phipps  was  a  distinguished  lawyer,  and  became  lord 
chancellor  of  Ireland;  he  is  noted  for  his  having  returned  to 
his  practice  at  the  bar  after  he  lost  the  seals.  His  son  mar- 
ried the  heiress  of  the  third  Earl  of  Anglesea ;  and  the  son 
of  this  son  was  raised  to  the  peerage  of  Ireland  under  the 
title  of  Mulgrave.  Afterward  the  title  became  Viscount  Nor- 
manby  and  Earl  of  Mulgrave;  and  its  last  possessor,  who, 
with  all  his  imputed  failings,  was  a  most  able  and  accomplish- 
ed man,  became  Marquis  of  Normanby.  But  the  honest,  hard- 
faring  man — the  lucky  finder  of  the  treasures  in  the  Spanish 
seas — is  justly  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  house  of  Phipps, 
of  courtier  fame. 

The  founder  of  the  house  of  Petty  has  told  us  much  of  his 
history  in  that  curious  autobiographic  document,  his  will. 
His  father  was  a  clothier,  and  "  also  did  die  his  own  clothes." 
As  a  boy,  the  illustrious  Petty  had  a  passion  for  knowledge, 


236  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

and  for  making  and  accumulating  money.  He  talks  of -l  get- 
ting up  mathematics"  and  "  getting  up  money"  as  being  very 
much  the  same  kind  of  thing.  Even  as  a  lad,  when  he  went 
to  Normandy  in  a  vessel,  he  played  the  merchant,  and  made  a 
matter  of  sixty  pounds.  He  then  spent  several  years  on  the 
Continent,  and,  it  seems,  exhausted  his  funds.  He  told 
Aubrey  that  in  Paris  he  lived  for  a  week  or  two  on  two  or 
three  pennyworth  of  walnuts.  Later  he  went  to  Oxford,  and 
was  also  admitted  a  member  of  the  College  of  Physicians. 
He  tells  us,  also,  that  he  was  admitted  a  member  of  "  several 
Clubs  of  the  Virtuous."  The  expression  is  curious  enough  as 
a  description  of  a  club,  but  what  Petty  meant  was  the  Virtuosi. 
As  a  physician  he  performed  his  famous  cure  of  Ann  Green. 
This  woman  had  been  hung,  and  after  execution  had  been 
suspended  for  half  an  hour,  and  finally  her  friends  had  rolled 
her  about  and  stamped  on  her  before  she  should  come  to  the 
knife  of  the  dissector.  Petty  succeeded  in  resuscitating  her, 
and  she  lived  for  many  years.  But  his  famous  pecuniary 
achievements  were  made  in  the  settlement  of  Ireland,  after 
the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion,  in  1641.  Petty  was  then 
physician  to  the  army.  He  perceived  that  this  was  a  great 
opportunity  of  making  a  fortune.  He  procured  a  contract  for 
the  "  admeasurement"  of  forfeited  lands.  He  made  thirteen 
thousand  pounds  by  the  contract,  and  then  purchased  from 
the  soldiers,  at  low  rates,  those  forfeited  lands  of  which  they 
had  debentures.  He  must  have  made  very  lucky  bargains, 
for  Aubrey  says  that  these  lands  were  worth  eighteen  thou- 
sand a  year  to  him.  These  enormous  gains  occasioned  much 
envy  and  ill-feeling.  One  of  Oliver  Cromwell's  knights  chal- 
lenged him  ;  but  Petty  said  that  he  was  a  near-sighted  man, 
and,  if  they  fought,  they  must  fight  with  carpenters'  adzes,  in 
a  dark  cellar.  The  Restoration  saved  him.  Although  he  had 
been  a  warm  Cromwellite,  he  dexterously  contrived  that  he 


RISING  MEN.  237 


should  be  regarded  as  a  devoted  adherent  of  the  new  Govern- 
ment. He  was  made  surveyor-general  of  Ireland,  and  all  his 
territorial  possessions  were  secured  to  him  by  the  Act  of  Set- 
tlement. The  survey  which  he  made  of  Ireland  was  a  great 
national  service.  From  Mount  Mongarto,  in  Kerry,  his  eye 
could  sweep  over  fifty  thousand  acres,  all  his  own.  Not  con- 
tent with  this,  he  busied  himself  about  mines,  fisheries,  iron- 
works, and  the  timber  trade.  Petty  was  clever  in  all  kinds  of 
ways,  and  had  a  remarkable  inventive  faculty;  he  had  the 
manners  of  a  courtier  and  the  versatility  of  an  actor;  but  he 
made  money  with  a  kind  of  intuition  of  genius.  Pepys  has  a 
mention  of  him  :  "  ist  February,  1684.  Thence  to  Whitehall ; 
where,  in  the  duke's  chamber,  the  king  came  and  stayed  an 
hour  or  two,  laughing  at  Sir  W.  Petty,  who  was  then  about  his 
boat,  and  at  Gresham  College  in  general ;  at  which  poor 
Petty  was,  I  perceived,  at  some  loss ;  but  did  argue  discreetly, 
and  bear  the  unreasonable  follies  of  the  king's  objections,  and 
other  bystanders,  with  great  discretion ;  and  offered  to  take 
odds  against  the  king's  best  boat ;  but  the  king  would  not 
lay,  but  cried  him  down  with  words  only."  Petty  married  a 
lady  whom  Aubrey  describes  as  "  very  beautiful,  brown,  with 
glorious  eyes."  He  died  in  Piccadilly.  His  widow  was  made 
Baroness  of  Shelburne  in  her  own  right ;  her  youngest  son 
became  Earl  of  Shelburne.  Besides  his  property  in  England, 
he  owned  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  square  miles  of  land  in 
Ireland.  All  his  children  died  before  him,  so  he  left  his  vast 
estates  to  his  nephew,  the  Hon.  John  Fitzmaurice,  who  assumed 
the  name  of  Petty,  and  was  made  a  British  peer,  under  the  title 
of  Baron  Wycombe.  A  grandson  of  this  nobleman  was  the 
late  celebrated  marquis,  whose  social  gatherings  at  Bowood 
and  Berkeley  Square  were  so  remarkable,  and  who  is  under- 
stood to  have  refused  the  dukedom  of  Kerry. 

The  real  founder  of  the  Belper  peerage  was  Jedediah  Strutt. 


238  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

His  father  was  a  country  yeoman,  and  the  Derbyshire  legend 
goes  that  Jedediah,  as  a  mere  child,  used  to  construct  minia- 
ture waterfalls  on  the  little  stream  that  glided  through  his  fa- 
ther's fields.  He,  too,  was  lucky  in  his  marriage,  although  the 
luck  is  not  at  first  sight  very  obvious.  His  wife's  family  all 
belonged  to  the  hosiery  trade,  and  the  young  man's  thoughts 
were  thus  directed  into  a  channel  in  which  he  was  enabled  to 
do  justice  to  his  remarkable  inventive  faculty.  He  constructed 
a  curious  and  complicated  machine,  the  parent  of  the  lace- 
frame,  for  the  manufacture  of  ribbed  stockings,  and  removed 
to  Derby,  where  he  worked  his  invention  under  a  patent. 
Here  another  stroke  of  luck  happened  to  him.  A  certain  in- 
dividual of  the  name  of  Arkwright,  who  had  the  notion  that 
he  had  devised  a  cotton-spinning  invention,  applied  to  Mr. 
Strutt  and  his  partner  for  capital  to  carry  it  into  effect.  The 
great  scientific  sagacity  of  Jedediah  Strutt  at  once  detected 
the  extraordinary  importance  of  the  invention.  A  partnership 
was  speedily  arranged ;  and  in  that  most  pleasant  village  of 
Cromford,  close  by  the  lovely  scenery  of  the  Matlock,  the  first 
cotton-spinning  mill  was  erected.  Soon  afterward  Mr.  Strutt's 
own  invention  was  applied  to  the  weaving  of  calicoes.  Thus 
that  great  manufacture  was  cradled  in  Derbyshire  which  be- 
came so  fruitful  a  source  of  modern  industrial  prosperity.  He 
had  four  splendid  mills  at  Belper,  where  he  fixed  his  residence, 
the  Cromford  property,  where  they  have  a  magnificent  seat, 
eventually  accruing  to  the  Arkwrights.  For  three  generations 
the  family  of  the  Strutts,  widely  ramifying  throughout  the 
country,  were  the  chief  manufacturing  powers  and  great  social 
influence  in  Derbyshire.  They  have  also  been  largely  noted 
for  their  munificence  and  public  spirit.  Their  splendid  liber- 
ality in  the  promotion  of  useful  public  objects,  and  especially 
in  attending  to  the  comfort  and  well-being  of  their  work-peo- 
ple, is  one  of  the  most  useful  and  brilliant  examples  of  the 


RISING  MEM  239 


sympathy  that  ought  to  exist  between  the  gentry  and  the 
ouvriere  class.  The  great  industrial  success  of  the  Strutts  has 
always  been  joined  with  a  thorough  love  of  literature  and  the 
arts.  We  find  Thomas  Moore,  the  poet,  when  residing  in  Der- 
byshire, thus  mentioning  the  Strutts  in  the  year  1813  :  "There 
are  three  brothers  of  them,  and  they  are  supposed  to  have  a 
million  of  money  pretty  equally  divided  between  them.  They 
have  fine  families  of  daughters,  and  are  fond  of  literature, 
music,  and  all  those  elegances  which  their  riches  enable  them 
so  amply  to  indulge  themselves  with.  ...  I  like  the  Strutts 
exceedingly ;  and  it  is  not  the  least  part  of  my  gratification  to 
find  a  very  pretty  girl  of  sixteen  reading  the  sixth  book  of 
Virgil,  and  not  at  all  spoilt  by  it.  This  is  Joseph  Strutt's  eldest 
girl — a  classic,  and  a  poetess  into  the  bargain.  Indeed,  they 
have  quite  a  nest  of  young  poets  in  that  family.  I  do  not 
think  I  wrote  half  so  well  when  I  was  their  age.  Then  they 
have  fine  piano-fortes,  magnificent  organs,  splendid  houses, 
most  excellent  white  soup ;  so  that  I  passed  my  time  very 
agreeably  among  them,  and  Bessy  came  away  loaded  with 
presents." 

There  are,  however,  better  instances  of  rising  men  than 
those  who  have  acquired  riches  and  honor  for  themselves.  It 
is  perhaps,  after  all,  not  a  very  truthful  or  elevating  view  of 
human  life  to  represent  that  a  man  by  energy  and  ability  may 
rise  beyond  his  fellows  and  win  some  of  the  great  prizes  of 
life.  If  there  are  prosperous  elements  that  lead  one  way, 
there  are  adverse  circumstances  that  impel  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. Many  of  those  who  strive  to  rise  meet  with  utter  failure 
in  case  their  ambition  is  frustrated,  but  those  who  desire  most 
of  all  simply  to  do  their  duty  to  God  and  man  can  never  meet 
with  absolute  failure,  but  will,  after  all,  gain  substantial  suc- 
cess. There  is  a  very  sensible  man  who  says,  writing  from 
his  own  experience  :  "  The  very  act  of  struggling  is  in  itself  a 


240  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE.  . 

species  of  enjoyment ;  and  every  hope  that  crosses  the  mind, 
every  high  resolve,  every  generous  sentiment,  every  lofty  aspi- 
ration— nay,  every  brave  despair — is  a  gleam  of  happiness  that 
flings  its  illumination  upon  the  darkest  destiny.  All  these  are 
as  essentially  a  portion  of  human  life  as  the  palpable  events 
that  serve  as  landmarks  to  the  history ;  and  all  these  would 
have  to  be  computed  before  we  could  fairly  judge  of  the  pre- 
vailing character  of  the  career."  Nothing  is  more  interesting 
than  looking  at  the  history  of  insignificant  minorities  of  men 
who,  few  in  number  but  strong  in  conviction,  have  ultimately 
carried  the  suffrages  of  the  better  part  of  the  community,  and 
have  proved  benefactors  to  the  world.  Such  men  are  in  the 
best  sense  rising  men,  and  their  prosperous  cause  is  not  a 
selfish  one.  A  magnificent  example  of  such  a  group  is  to  be 
found  in  what  Sir  James  Stephen  called  the  Clapham  set,  and 
of  which  Mr.  Colquhoun  has  written  in  the  "  Contemporaries 
of  Wilberforce."  The  story  of  Wilberforce  himself  is  one  that 
might  be  fitly  rehearsed  by  some  new  writer  to  each  genera- 
tion of  Englishmen. 

And  what  a  remarkable  set  of  men  they  were,  who  thorough- 
ly leavened  the  Church  of  England,  and  greatly  changed  the 
face  of  society  and  our  English  world  !  Nothing  is  more  won- 
derful than  the  freshness,  strength,  and  originality  which  dis- 
tinguished this  great  party  of  the  so-called  Evangelicals.  They 
present  lives  of  intense  interest,  and  even  love-stories  and 
gleams  of  romance.  First  of  all,  we  have  the  elder  Milner, 
who,  from  the  drudgery  of  the  loom,  pushed  on  to  be  senior 
wrangler  and  head  of  Queen's  College,  and  who  brought  into 
the  traveling  carriage  which  Wilberforce  shared  with  him  that 
copy  of  Doddridge's  "  Rise  and  Progress"  which,  under  God, 
so  materially  changed  the  lives  of  both.  Then  we  have  New- 
ton, to  whom  Wilberforce  resorted  for  aid  and  advice  in  his 
renewed  life.  Among  all  my  friends,  I  now  know  only  one 


KISfNG  MEN. 


241 


who  attended  the  breakfasts  Newton  used  to  give — where  he 
was  listened  to  as  an  almost  inspired  oracle,  and  if  he  only 
coughed,  an  anxious  inquiry  ran  round  the  circle  as  to  wheth- 
er the  cough  had  covered  some  precious  utterance — and  who 
would  watch  him  in  the  pulpit  of  St.  Mary  Woolnooth,  as  he 
would  ask  his  man-servant  where  he  had  left  off,  and  would 
be  told  that  it  was  something  about  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
Then  we  have  that  extraordinary  young  man,  John  Bowdler, 
who,  in  some  respects,  reminds  me  of  Henry  Kirke  White, 
and  in  some  respects  even  of  Pascal.  He  broke  down  his 
health  by  extraordinary  intellectual  toil,  evidencing  both  a 
strength  and  versatility  of  mind  that  were  most  remarkable. 
He  formed  a  deep  attachment  to  a  young  lady,  which,  on  ac- 
count of  his  unsettled  prospects,  was  long  discouraged  by  his 
friends,  and  at  last,  upon  the  eve  of  marriage,  he  was  found  in 
his  chamber  with  a  blood-vessel  burst  in  his  lungs.  The  puri- 
ty and  elevation  of  his  character  had  won  him  the  deep  love 
of  the  pure  and  high-minded  men  with  whom  he  associated. 
"O  sit  anim  amea  cum  Bowdlero!"  was  the  heart-felt  exclama- 
tion of  Wilberforce.  A  set  of  men  were  associated  with  Wil- 
berforce  whom  Mr.  Colquhoun  calls  the  Cabinet  Council. 
Among  these  was  Stephen,  the  master  in  chancery,  who  mar- 
ried Wilberforce's  sister,  father  of  the  historian,  working  thor- 
oughly in  dry,  uncongenial  duties,  yet  full  of  energy  and  impet- 
uosity in  stirring  up  Wilberforce  and  his  friends  to  good  works, 
and  delighting  to  get  away  from  Chancery  Lane  to  the  woods 
and  lawns  of  the  country.  It  is  pleasant  to  find  a  shrewd 
Londoner,  like  Stephen,  writing:  "The  country  is  that  where 
I  learn  what  is  good  for  myself.  I  love  the  country ;  I  love 
its  natural,  innocent  joys ;  I  love  its  natural,  instructive  sor- 
rows. .  .  .  Oh,  what  a  delicious  oratory  is  a  beech-wood  on 
a  calm,  hot  day  !  Not  a  leaf  stirring  ;  not  a  sound  ;  a  sacred 
kind  of  shady  light,  with  here  and  there  a  straggling  sunbeam, 

L 


242 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


like  a  gleam  of  providential  direction  for  the  dark  concerns 
of  life."  But  the  chief  rural  figure  among  these  men  was  that 
of  Thomas  Gisborne,  the  clergyman.  He  used  to  live  in  the 
most  retired  and  woody  part  of  Needham  Forest,  amid  oaks, 
flowering  gorse,  and  chestnut -trees,  keeping  open  house  for 
his  tired  friends  when  they  wanted  to  exchange  London  for 
country  scenes  and  country  air.  He  would  tell  them  about 
every  bird,  flower,  and  insect  which  he  saw,  and  take  them 
into  the  cottages  of  the  forest ;  or,  in  winter,  he  would  come 
up  to  Palace  Yard,  Battersea  Rise,  or  Kensington  Gore, 
where  he  would  be  dazed  by  the  throng  of  faces,  the  tumult 
of  voices,  but  would  give  his  safe  and  sound  advice,  and  be 
glad  once  more  to  betake  himself  to  his  glades. 

The  two  Thorntons,  John  and  Henry,  are  very  interesting 
men.  The  elder  was  the  one  who  allowed  Newton  a  consid- 
erable annual  sum  for  charitable  uses  while  he  was  at  Olney, 
and  whose  great  relaxation  it  was  to  carry  pious  Churchmen 
and  Non-conformists  about  in  his  carriage,  taking  care  that 
they  had  plenty  of  pipes  and  tobacco  if  they  wanted  such. 
Churchmen  and  Non-conformists  drew  closer  together  in  those 
days,  when  the  fashionable  hatred  was  directed  against  the 
so-called  Methodism  of  the  Evangelicals.  Colquhoun  justly 
says :  "  When  the  waters  are  out,  inequalities  vanish  ;  when 
the  waters  subside,  hillocks  reappear,  and  disputants  plant 
their  feet  on  these,  and  count  them  great  heights."  Henry 
Thornton,  the  son,  with  his  father's  wide  beneficence,  had 
one  of  the  finest  and  best-balanced  minds  of  the  set.  For 
thirty  years  he  was  member  for  Southwark,  and  never  spent  a 
guinea  in  a  bribe.  His  seat  was  often  in  peril — the  forest  of 
black  hands  was  frequently  against  him  on  nomination  day ; 
but,  when  defeat  seemed  imminent,  all  good  men  to  whom  his 
Christian  example  was  dear,  all  sensible  men  who  rejoiced  in 
the  character  for  independence  and  good  sense  maintained 


RISING  MEN. 


243 


by  the  member  for  Southwark,  rallied  round  him.  When  his 
children  rejoiced  at  seeing  the  long  triumphal  procession,  he 
said,  "  I  had  rather  have  a  shake  of  the  hand  from  good  old 
John  Newton  than  the  cheers  of  all  that  foolish  mob,  who 
praise  me,  they  don't  know  why."  He  gave  it  as  his  deliber- 
ate opinion  that  wealth  was  "  extremely  mean,  except  for  the 
sake  of  the  beneficent  uses  to  which  it  is  convertible."  It  was 
the  example  of  Wilberforce  that  had  won  over  Henry  Thornton 
to  better  things ;  he  had  observed  that  Wilberforce,  in  his 
crowded,  active  life,  always  kept  a  morning  hour  inviolate,  and 
his  Sundays  holy.  Most  interesting  is  the  account  of  Thorn- 
ton's associates,  who  used  to  meet  at  Clapham,  in  the  Oval 
Library  which  Pitt  planned,  looking  out  on  the  lawn,  in  what 
was  then  only  a  village,  but  which  the  long  arms  of  London 
have  now  reached  and  clasped  to  herself  Among  the  young 
men  were  the  promising  young  lawyer,  Copley,  young  Stephen, 
and  the  boy  from  Mr.  Preston's  academy,  Thomas  Babington 
Macaulay,  the  son  of  the  stern  Scotchman  who  almost  founded 
Sierra  Leone,  and  the  relative  and  namesake  of  the  Leicester- 
shire squire,  Thomas  Babington,  the  descendant  of  Crusaders, 
and  a  warrior  in  the  mighty  modern  crusade  against  slavery 
and  all  other  evils.  Then,  again,  there  were  such  noblemen 
as  Lords  Bexley,  Sidmouth,  and  Teignmouth.  Then,  again, 
there  was  the  delicate,  pensive  form  of  Mrs.  Grant,  of  whom 
poor  Bowdler  said  that  "  she  was  so  soft,  so  gentle,  so  un- 
wearied, surely  she  was  sent  into  the  world  to  comfort  the 
sick  and  sorrowful;"  and,  hardly  less  remarkable,  Mrs.  Henry 
Thornton  herself.  Of  Mrs.  Grant,  Mr.  Colquhoun  says, "  Mar- 
ried in  India,  having  passed  in  that  tropical  climate  many  of 
her  most  impressible  years,  a  character  naturally  gentle  seemed 
to  have  been  mellowed  into  special  tenderness  under  those 
Eastern  suns ;  so  that  when  she  left  India  and  passed  into 
our  colder  and  sterner  society,  she  brought  into  her  manners, 


244  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

looks,  and  sentiments  something  of  that  sensitive  delicacy 
which  belongs  to  plants  nursed  into  luxuriant  growth  under 
the  heat  of  Southern  suns.  The  voice  soft  and  low,  the  man- 
ner quiet  and  retiring,  the  dress  itself,  the  veil  thrown  over 
the  head,  and  falling  down  in  folds  over  the  figure,  was  all  in 
keeping  with  that  veiled  modesty  and  gentle  purity." 

When  the  Thorntons  died — the  wife  so  soon  after  the  hus- 
band— Robert  Harry  Inglis  and  his  young  wife,  being  child- 
less, with  rare  disinterestedness  and  courage,  took  charge  of 
their  young  family  of  nine  children.  How  well  this  duty  was 
discharged  is  evidenced,  among  other  facts,  by  this,  that  when 
the  "  elder  son,  arriving  at  man's  estate,  was  qualified,  both  by 
ability  and  fortune,  to  take  up  an  independent  position  in  the 
house  which  his  father  owned,  he,  voluntarily  declining  that 
post,  preferred  for  twelve  years  to  live,  with  filial  duty,  as  a  son 
in  the  house  where  he  might  have  ruled  as  a  master."  Sir 
Robert,  by  a  kind  of  magic,  gathered  around  him  every  man 
who  had  made  himself  conspicuous  in  active  life  or  in  intel- 
lectual pursuits.  Even  Macaulay,  who  differed  from  him./0/<? 
ccelo,  heard  him  with  reverence,  and  gave  him  the  homage  of 
a  son.  For  many  years  he  was  one  of  the  most  familiar  fig- 
ures of  the  House  of  Commons,  coming  down  night  after 
»  night,  with  the  unfailing  rose  in  his  button-hole — a  rose,  how- 
ever, never  gathered  by  himself  in  the  country,  for  he  was  one 
of  the  most  inveterate  of  Londoners,  but  constantly  sent  him 
by  those  who  knew  and  loved  the  man.  He  traveled  abroad 
regularly,  enchanting  the  foreigners  by  his  simple,  grand  man- 
ners, and  supposed  at  times  to  be  an  English  duke.  He  was 
the  personification  of  happiness  and  courtesy.  He  was  thor- 
oughly well  educated,  with  that  peculiar  and  most  valuable 
education  which  results  from  intimacy  with  distinguished  men. 
To  talk  with  Guizot,  Hallam,  Palgrave,  Macaulay,  Southey, 
Croker,  Lockhart,  about  history  and  literature  ;  to  Whewell, 


RISING  MEN. 


245 


Owen,  Sabine,  Murchison,  about  science;  to  Stamford  Raffles, 
Basil  Hall,  Sir  John  Franklin,  Dr.  Wolff,  about  travels ;  to 
Chantrey,  Lawrence,  Wilkie,  about  art :  this  was  surely  an 
education  better  than  Christ  Church  gave  him,  and  he  proved 
himself  highly  educated,  so  as  to  hold  his  own  with  such  men, 
and  to  prove  one  of  the  most  serviceable  of  the  trustees  of  the 
British  Museum. 

This  cluster  of  names  forms  a  very  hagiology  for  the  pres- 
ent generation  of  the  Low  Church  clergy.  Their  sayings 
and  doings  are  a  veritable  acta  sanctorum.  Men  have  caught 
their  fleeting  examples  and  crystallized  them  into  abiding 
shapes.  Their  lines  of  speech  and  action  have  been  reduced 
to  formulas,  and  even  to  shibboleths,  and  have  been  made 
binding  on  their  successors.  Now  this  stiffness  and  strict- 
ness are  quite  contradictory  to  the  frank,  free,  joyous  spirit  of 
these  great  men.  Moreover,  the  accidental  features  have 
been  confounded  with  the  essential.  Platform  oratory  is  con- 
sidered the  great  exponent  of  Exeter  Hall  views ;  but  Wilber- 
force  himself  regarded  this  with  distrust,  and  looked  upon  it 
as  a  shadow  and  drawback  and  necessary  evil. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  right  to  imitate  a  good  thing,  although,  of 
course,  an  imitation  must  always  come  behind  the  original. 
What  one  would  desire  to  point  out  is  the  peculiar  influence 
which  such  men  as  Wilberforce,  Thornton,  and  Inglis  acquired 
in  the  House.  At  first  they  were  disliked,  avoided,  scoffed  at ; 
belonging  to  neither  party,  they  were  sure  to  reprove  and  un- 
certain to  support.  Nevertheless,  these  men  attained  to  be  a 
power  in  the  country.  Thus  important  decisions  hung  on 
their  voice  and  influence.  The  minister  of  the  day  would  ad- 
dress to  them  appeals  not  to  make  up  their  minds  until  they 
had  heard  the  government  side  of  the  question.  Men  knew 
that  in  one  quarter  of  the  House,  at  least,  there  was  an  unpur- 
chasable  integrity.  We  want  men  at  the  present  time  who 


246  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

will  forget  the  dreams  of  selfish  ambition  and  inglorious  ease, 
who  will  be  true  to  the  voice  of  duty,  and  who  will  have  that 
heart-felt  patriotism,  that  heart-felt  religion  which,  when  united, 
will  do  our  land  the  good  she  so  sorely  needs,  and  alone  con- 
fer a  pure  and  lasting  fame. 

On  every  side  we  see  slow  waiting,  and  the  necessity  of  pa- 
tience. Johnson  wrote :  "  Slow  rises  worth  by  poverty  de- 
pressed," and  he  himself  was  the  best  illustration  of  his  apo- 
thegm. There  seems  to  have  been  no  conscious  point  in  his 
career  at  which  the  drudge  of  the  booksellers  became  the  dic- 
tator of  the  literary  world.  It  was  learning,  hard  work,  and 
good  sense,  well-nigh  sublimated  to  genius,  which  made  him 
victorious,  and  if  there  was  any  definite  moment  of  victory — 
as  perhaps  there  was — it  has  not  been  recorded  for  us.  The 
same  story  is  told  over  and  over  again  in  the  annals  of  litera- 
ture, science,  and  art.  We  have  all  heard  of  the  provocations 
of  Palissy,  the  potter.  Such  a  life  as  that  of  Stephenson,  the 
engineer,  shows  us  the  gradual  triumph  of  genius.  He  was 
over  forty  before  he  secured  a  position  which  afforded  him  the 
modest  competence  of  a  hundred  pounds  a  year.  He  inau- 
gurated and  carried  out  the  whole  railway  system,  in  spite  of 
the  organized  opposition  of  the  whole  stupidity  of  the  country. 
The  readers  of  Mr.  Smiles's  "  Lives  of  the  Engineers"  will  re- 
member other  instances  of  the  class  to  which  Stephenson  be- 
longed. Such  is  the  renowned  Telford,  the  son  of  the  small 
East  Lothian  farmer,  who  became  the  architect  of  three  great 
London  bridges,  of  the  Plymouth  Breakwater,  and  the  London 
and  East  India  Docks.  Such,  again,  was  Rennie,  the  roman- 
tic dreamer  of  Eskdale,  a  poet  and  a  friend  of  poets,  whose 
moral  beauty  of  life  is  as  remarkable  as  the  list  of  the  great 
bridges  and  canals  by  which  he  developed  the  resources  of 
the  country.  Such,  again,  to  take  another  French  instance, 
was  D'Alembert.  Being  exposed  and  abandoned  by  his  moth- 


RISIArG   MEN. 


er,  the  lady  novelist  De  Tencer,  in  a  public  market,  he  was 
placed  by  the  authorities  as  a  foundling  at  a  glazier's  shop. 
He  showed  an  extraordinary  love  and  aptitude  for  learning, 
but  he  was  baffled  and  discouraged  at  every  step.  They  ridi- 
culed his  pursuits  at  home ;  at  school  they  dissuaded  him  from 
mathematics,  in  which  department  his  powers  were  of  the 
highest  order;  and,  what  was  almost  worst  of  all,  whenever  he 
persuaded  himself  that  he  had  done  something  original,  he  in- 
variably found  that  others  had  found  out  the  same  thing  be- 
fore him.  Such  ability  could  not  possibly  be  repressed.  At 
twenty-four  he  was  a  member  of  the  Academy,  and  henceforth 
his  career  was  plain.  Then  his  brilliant  but  unnatural  mother 
is  said  to  have  claimed  her  son.  D' Alembert  replied,  "  You 
are  only  my  step-mother :  the  glazier's  wife  is  my  mother." 

We  have  spoken  of  brilliant  successes  in  these  high  intel- 
lectual walks  of  life,  and  have  seen  that  they  do  not  so  much 
depend  upon  great  gifts,  or  the  opportunity  of  their  exhibition, 
as  on  a  fixed  purpose  and  a  rule  of  life.  There  is  a  real  dan- 
ger, perhaps,  in  allowing  the  mind  to  dwell  upon  pictures  of 
human  success.  Those  who  are  striving  form  a  far  too  glow- 
ing conception  of  the  prosperity  of  those  who  have  attained. 
If  we  look  at  the  lives  of  the  most  successful  men,  gain  is 
chequered  by  disaster  and  loss,  and,  according  to  the  common 
image,  the  fruit  clutched  so  eagerly  becomes  as  Dead  Sea 
ashes  to  the  taste.  An  eloquent  writer  once  wrote  a  religious 
work  on  "  the  Mirage  of  Life."  Those  who  dream  of  worldly 
success,  those  who  attain  to  such  success,  often  find  that  the 
real  object  of  their  search  has  eluded  their  grasp ;  and  their 
very  successes  only  serve  to  point  a  moral  and  adorn  a  tale — 
to  point  a  moral  on  the  vanity  of  human  wishes,  and  to  tell 
the  tale  of  glory  saddened  by  sorrows  and  reverses. 

"  How  do  these  events,"  wrote  at  the  time  Mr.  Wilberforce, 
the  friend  of  Pitt — "  How  do  these  events  tend  to  illustrate  the 


248  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

vanity  of  worldly  greatness !  Poor  Pitt,  I  almost  believe,  died 
of  a  broken  heart.  A  broken  heart !  What !  was  he  like  Ot- 
way  or  Collins  or  Chatterton,  who  had  not  so  much  as  a  need- 
ful complement  of  food  to  sustain  their  bodies,  while  the  con- 
sciousness of  unrewarded  talents  and  mortified  pride  pressed 
them  within,  and  ate  out  their  very  souls  ?  Was  he  even  like 
Suwaroff,  another  most  useful  example,  basely  deserted  and 
driven  into  exile  by  the  sovereign  he  had  so  long  served? 
No;  he  was  the  highest  in  power  and  estimation  in  the  whole 
kingdom — the  favorite,  I  believe,  on  the  whole,  both  of  king 
and  people.  Yes ;  this  man  who  died  of  a  broken  heart  was 
first  lord  of  the  treasury  and  chancellor  of  the  exchequer." 

Or  look  at  the  language  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  reference  to 
his  leaving  Abbotsford :  "  When  I  think,"  he  writes  at  a  time 
when  leaving  Abbotsford,  apparently  for  ever — "  When  I  think 
what  this  place  now  is,  with  what  it  has  been,  not  long  ago,  I 
think  my  heart  will  break.  Lonely,  aged,  deprived  of  all  my 
family,  I  am  an  impoverished  and  embarrassed  man."  At  an- 
other time  he  writes :  "  Death  has  closed  the  dark  avenue  of 
love  and  friendship.  I  look  at  them  through  the  grated  door 
of  a  burial-place,  filled  with  monuments  of  those  who  once 
were  dear  to  me,  and  with  no  other  wish  than  that  it  may  open 
for  me  at  no  distant  period."  Not  long  after  he  writes  in  this 
strain :  "  Some  new  object  of  complaint  comes  every  moment. 
Sicknesses  come  thicker  and  thicker;  friends  are  fewer  and 
fewer.  The  recollection  of  youth,  health,  and  powers  of  activ- 
ity, neither  improved  nor  enjoyed,  is  a  poor  strain  of  comfort. 
The  best  is,  the  long  halt  will  arrive  at  length,  and  close  all." 
Such  was  the  confession  of  one  who  had  drunk  so  largely  of 
the  world's  cup  of  enjoyment.  Oh,  how  emphatically  does  it 
warn  those  whose  hearts  are  still  set  upon  similar  vanities ! 

Or  compare  the  language  of  the  poet  Campbell :  "I  am 
alone  in  the  world.  My  wife  and  the  child  of  my  hopes  are 


RISING   MEN.  249 


dead.  My  only  surviving  child  is  confined  to  a  living  tomb" 
(he  was  the  inmate  of  a  lunatic  asylum).  "  My  old  friends, 
brothers  and  sisters,  are  dead — all  but  one,  and  she  too  is  dy- 
ing. My  last  hopes  are  blighted.  As  for  fame,  it  is  a  bubble 
that  must  soon  burst.  Earned  for  others,  shared  for  others, 
it  was  sweet ;  but,  at  my  age,  to  my  own  solitary  experience  it 
is  bitter.  Left  in  my  chamber  alone  with  myself,  is  it  wonder- 
ful my  philosophy  at  times  takes  fright — that  I  rush  into  com- 
pany, resort  to  that  which  blunts,  but  heals  no  pang ;  and 
then,  sick  of  the  world,  and  dissatisfied  with  myself,  shrink 
back  into  solitude  ?" 

Perhaps  few  literary  contrasts  are  sharper  than  that  pre- 
sented by  the  first  great  success  of  Alexander  Dumas,  at  the 
Palais  Royal,  albeit  that  success  was  of  a  questionable  kind. 
The  Due  d'Orleans  (Louis  Philippe)  was  there,  accompanied 
by  twenty  or  thirty  princes  and  princesses.  Completely  un- 
known before  the  representation  of  his  "  Henri  Trois,"  he  was 
next  day  the  most  famous  man  in  Paris.  As  soon  as  his  suc- 
cess was  assured,  and  he  had  received  the  congratulations  of  his 
friends,  he  hurried  off  to  see  his  sick  mother.  "How  many  envy 
me  this  evening,"  he  writes,  "  who  little  thought  that  I  passed 
the  night  on  a  mattress  by  the  bedside  of  my  dying  mother !" 

Of  Voltaire,  it  is  none  other  than  the  friendly  Marmontel 
who  says :  "  To  him  the  greatest  of  blessings — repose — was 
unknown.  It  is  true  that  at  last  envy  appeared  tired  of  the 
pursuit,  and  began  to  spare  him  on  the  brink  of  the  grave. 
On  his  return  to  Paris,  after  a  long  exile,  he  enjoyed  his  re- 
nown, and  felt  the  enthusiasm  of  a  whole  people  grateful  for 
the  pleasures  he  had  afforded  them.  The  weak  and  last  effort 
he  made  to  amuse  them,  'Irene,'  was  applauded,  as  'Zaire' 
had  been  ;  and  this  representation,  at  which  he  was  crowned, 
was  for  him  the  most  delightful  triumph.  But  at  what  moment 
did  this  tardy  consolation,  the  recompense  of  so  much  work- 

L2 


250 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


ing,  reach  him  ?  The  next  day  I  saw  him  in  his  bed.  '  Well,' 
said  I,  '  are  you  at  last  satiated  with  glory  ?'  '  Ah,  my  good 
friend,'  he  replied,  '  you  talk  to  me  of  glory,  and  I  am  dying 
in  frightful  torture.'  " 

As  an  example  of  a  literary  family,  eminent  for  sorrow  as 
well  as  intellectual  greatness,  look  at  the  memorials  of  the  won- 
derful Hallam.  Not  so  much  to  be  pitied  were  those  that  died 
young  as  was  the  father  who  witnessed  the  premature  depart- 
ure of  so  much  goodness  and  promise.  Look  first  at  the  in- 
scription on  his  tablet  at  St.  Paul's,  which  was  probably  written 
by  Macaulay.  "  Henry  Hallam,  the  historian  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  of  the  Constitution  of  his  country,  and  of  the  literature 
of  Europe.  This  monument  is  raised  by  many  friends,  who, 
regarding  the  soundness  of  his  learning,  the  simple  elegance 
of  his  style,  his  manly  and  capacious  intellect,  the  fearless 
honesty  of  his  judgment,  and  the  moral  dignity  of  his  life,  de- 
sire to  perpetuate  his  memory  within  these  sacred  walls,  as  of 
one  who  has  best  illustrated  the  English  language,  the  English 
character,  and  the  English  name." 

This  is  the  inscription  to  the  memory  of  Arthur  Henry,  aet. 
23,  the  subject  of  Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam."  His  epitaph 
at  Clevedon  is  as  follows  :  "  And  now,  in  this  obscure  and  soli- 
tary church,  repose  the  mortal  remains  of  one  too  early  lost 
for  public  fame,  but  already  distinguished  among  his  contem- 
poraries for  the  brightness  of  his  genius,  the  depth  of  his  un- 
derstanding, the  nobleness  of  his  disposition,  the  fervor  of  his 
piety,  and  the  purity  of  his  life.  Vale  dulcissime,  desideratis*- 
sime.  Requiescat  in  pace  usque  ad  tubam." 

Here  are  the  epitaphs  on  two  other  children :  "  Eleanor 
Hallam,  d.  aet.  21.  Her  afflicted  parents,  bending  under  this 
second  bereavement,  record  here  that  loveliness  of  temper  and 
that  heavenly  minded  piety  which  are  lost  to  them,  but  are 
gone  to  their  own  reward." 


RISING  MEN. 


251 


"  Henry  Fitzmaurice  Hallam,  d.  set.  26.  In  whose  clear  and 
vivid  understanding,  sweetness  of  disposition,  and  purity  of 
life,  an  image  of  his  elder  brother  was  before  the  eyes  of  those 
who  had  most  loved  him.  Distinguished,  like  him,  by  early 
reputation,  and  by  the  affection  of  many  friends,  he  was,  like 
him,  also  cut  off  by  a  short  illness  in  a  foreign  land." 

We  need  not  add  any  thing  to  these  touching  epitaphs. 
They  tell,  indeed,  the  touching  story  of  the  vanity  and  glory 
of  genius  and  success,  but  they  tell  us  also  of  that  blessed 
hope  that  alone  solves  the  enigma  of  life,  and  brings  consola- 
tion to  all  its  sorrows  and  disappointments. 


252 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Statesmen. 

A  LARGE  subject  in  connection  with  history  and  life  opens 
up  in  reference  to  statesmen  and  statesmanship.  Their  lives 
are  fraught  with  larger  influence  and  meaning  than  the  lives 
of  other  men  ;  they  connect  the  broad  events  and  tendencies 
of  history  with  the  details  of  individual  life.  Many  of  the 
most  stirring  pages  of  history,  and  all  its  milder  and  more 
graceful  passages,  belong  to  the  lives  of  the  great  men  who 
have  lived  and  made  history.  There  is  a  curious  theory  that 
distinguished  statesmen  are  but  the  "  outcome"  of  their  time, 
and  the  real  history  of  a  country  must  be  sought  in  the  masses 
of  the  people.  There  may  be  some  measure  of  truth  in  this 
assertion  which  has  been  overlooked  by  some  regular  histori- 
ans, but  the  world  is  pretty  well  agreed  that  the  great  men 
who  have  stamped  their  mark  upon  an  era  have  shaped  the 
destinies  of  their  country,  and  have  invisibly  influenced  the 
course  of  subsequent  ages. 

Dr.  Johnson  intercalated  a  well-known  passage  in  Gold- 
smith's "Traveller,"  commencing  with  the  lines, 
"  How  small  of  all  that  human  hearts  endure, 

That  part  which  kings  or  laws  can  cause  or  cure  !" 
There  is  in  these  lines  that  general  amount  of  truth  and  error 
which  is  ordinarily  found  in  such  universal  propositions. 

In  the  Georgian  era  it  can  hardly  be  said  of  any  English 
statesmen  that  he  caused  or  cured  many  human  ills,  except  in 
some  very  remote  way.  There  are,  however,  times  in  the  his- 


STA  TESMEN. 


253 


tory  of  all  nations  when  good  or  bad  legislation  has  been 
fraught  with  far-reaching  consequences.  Some  moments  in 
the  lives  of  statesmen  have  really  been  the  deepest  moments? 
of  national  history.  The  hour  when  a  line  of  thought  and1 
observation  has  conducted  a  statesman's  mind  to  some  course 
of  practical  action  beyond  battle  or  treaty  is  a  landmark  in  a 
people's  history.  No  events  loom  larger  in  Athenian  story 
than  the  Constitution  of  Solon  or  the  Constitution  of  Cleis- 
thenes.  To  use  Dr.  Arnold's  phrase,  we  draw  no  distinction 
between  ancient  and  modern  history,  except  that  ancient  his- 
tory is,  in  a  sense,  much  more  truly  modern  than  much  which 
we  call  modern  history.  That  is  indeed  a  happy  destiny  "  To 
scatter  plenty  o'er  a  smiling  land,  and  read  his  history  in  a 
nation's  eyes."  At  the  same  time  there  is  an  infinite  amount 
of  truth  in  Johnson's  lines.  Nothing  is  more  important  than 
that  people  should  understand  what  statesmen  are  and  what 
they  are  not  able  to  do.  Individual  life  is  the  ultimate  fact  in 
all  politics.  The  great  men  of  any  era  are  unable  to  confer 
upon  a  man  the  master}'  over  his  passions  and  the  harmonious 
development  of  his  complex  nature.  They  can  only  put  him 
under  general  conditions  favorable  for  his  progress.  They 
can  not  enlighten  his  conscience,  soothe  his  grief,  or  take 
away  his  poverty.  They  can  provide  him  with  a  sphere  for 
the  exercise  of  his  powers,  but  they  can  only  do  this  in  pro- 
portion as  "self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control"  can 
make  him  fit  for  political  life.  The  great  defect  of  all  revolu- 
tions has  been  that  people  have  sought  from  governments 
what  governments  can  not  give,  but  what  they  might  have 
found  in  themselves.  The  lives  of  statesmen  may  demonstrate 
conclusively  the  comparative  narrowness  of  the  limits  in  which 
they  must  work.  They  show,  also,  the  comparative  unimport- 
ance of  the  forms  of  institutions,  but  the  supreme  importance 
of  the  brightness,  spirit,  and  purity  that  should  animate  them. 


254  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

The  statesmen  who  really  shine  brightest  in  history  are  those 
who  have  developed  both  the  resources  and  the  spirit  of  a 
nation,  who  have  attended  to  material  interests,  but  have  not 
allowed  material  interests  to  dwarf  the  patriotism  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  people.  The  lives  of  statesmen  have  always  been 
a  source  of  the  deepest  interest,  through  the  knowledge  that 
their  lives  have  influenced  so  many  lives,  that  they,  through 
their  action  on  their  country,  are  brought  not  remotely  into 
direct  connection  with  ourselves.  We  follow  them,  animated 
and  interested,  through  the  successive  steps  by  which  they  at- 
tained to  power,  and  peruse  the  great  speeches  by  which  they 
astonished  and  delighted  senates.  It  would,  by  the  way,  be 
an  amusing  subject  to  write  an  essay  on  the  perorations  of 
speeches.  Amid  these  enunciations  of  the  largest  aspirations 
of  statesmen,  you  might  find  almost  every  example  of  gorgeous 
rhetoric  and  ill-starred  vaticination.  What  minister  ever  yet 
brought  in  a  bill  relating  to  Ireland,  repealing,  amending,  or 
promulgating  laws,  without  drawing  a  vision  of  an  Utopian  age 
which  was  to  follow  the  passing  of  his  proposed  legislation  ? 
The  Irish  peroration  is  the  most  striking  specimen  of  its  class. 
There  is  something  almost  exciting  as  we  turn  to  the  gladia- 
torial encounters  of  the  arena  of  the  senate.  Of  all  kinds  of 
glory,  military  glory  is  the  promptest  and  the  most  fraught 
with  results,  but  next  to  that  come  the  cheers  of  a  great  ora- 
tion and  a  triumphant  division.  Yet  it  must  be  owned  that 
when  we  come  to  look  into  the  lives  of  statesmen  there  is  gen- 
erally very  much  of  disappointment.  "  See,  my  son,"  said  Oxes- 
tierna,  "by  how  little  wisdom  we  are  governed."  Sometimes 
we  see  instances  of  astonishing  littleness  in  great  people. 
Thus  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  violently  opposed  to  Russia 
because  he  had  violent  quarrels  with  the  Lievens,  and  thought 
himself  not  civilly  treated  at  St.  Petersburg.  Similarly  M. 
Guizot  is  accredited  with  an  unfriendly  feeling  toward  En- 


STA  TESMEN. 


255 


gland,  because  in  England  there  had  been  a  lack  of  personal 
attention  to  him.*  Very  often,  also,  there  is  a  certain  narrow- 
ness in  the  views  and  feelings  of  statesmen.  Accustomed  to 
deal  with  men  in  the  aggregate,  they  are  deficient  in  sympathy 
with  individual  life,  and  are  content  with  political  combina- 
tions instead  of  looking  into  the  deeper  tendencies  of  a  nation. 
Thus  the  great  experiment  of  ruling  France  by  a  parliamentary 
government  under  Louis  Philippe  lead  to  the  capital  error  of 
absolute  reliance  on  the  majority  of  a  chamber.  Again,  states- 
men have  been  tempted  to  look  upon  religion  simply  as  a 
means  of  government,  instead  of  perceiving  that  religious 
questions  underlie  all  others,  and  are  more  important  than 
any.  It  is  a  reproach  that  may  continually  be  leveled  against 
statesmen  that  they  are  slow  to  discern  the  signs  of  the  times. 
The  parliament  that  met  just  before  the  breaking  out  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  war  was  congratulated  in  the  speech  from  the 
throne  on  the  quietness  and  amity  of  nations.  When  Lord 
Granville  assumed  the  reins  of  the  foreign  office  he  was  told 
that  never  before  had  there  been  such  a  lull  in  the  affairs  of 
Europe. 

If  we  looked,  then,  at  the  great  turning-points  in  the  lives 
of  statesmen,  we  should  take  both  a  larger  and  a  more  limited 
view.  In  the  larger  view  we  should  take  those  events  which 
have,  in  influencing  a  statesman's  mind,  also  influenced  the 
destiny  of  his  country.  Such  a  time  has  been  that  when  Hyde 
renounced  his  connection  with  the  Roundheads,  or  Burke  with 
the  Jacobins.  The  gradual  growth  of  opinion  in  the  mind  of 
the  late  Sir  Robert  Peel  led  first  to  his  acceptance  of  the 
Catholic  claims,  and  next  to  his  abandonment  of  protection. 
The  more  limited  view  concerns  the  occasions  which  deter- 
mined a  man's  connection  with  a  party  or  his  advance  in 
office,  as  when  Mr.  Canning  sided  with  the  Liberals,  or  Mr. 
*  Lord  Balling's  "  Life  of  Lord  Palmerston." 


256  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

Canning's  great  pupil,  Mr.  Gladstone,  definitely  broke  with  the 
Tory  party,  among  whom  he  had  been  brought  up.  Of  course, 
there  is  no  sharp  line  of  demarcation  between  these  two  classes 
of  instances.  It  does  not  follow  that  because  a  statesman 
has  overthrown  any  system,  therefore  the  system  was  a  wrong 
one ;  we  only  see  that  the  application  of  principles  must  vary 
with  the  conditions.  The  principle  of  protection  might  be 
right  in  one  stage  of  a  nation's  history,  but  under  altered  cir- 
cumstances it  might  be  best  to  resort  to  a  system  of  free  trade. 
Under  one  state  of  society  an  aristocratic  government  might 
be  best;  in  another,  a  truly  representative  system  might  be 
best ;  and  when  intelligence  is  more  widely  diffused,  represen- 
tation may  be  broadly  based  upon  a  national  suffrage.  Nei- 
ther the  statesman  who  has  founded  a  system  nor  a  statesman 
who  has  abolished  a  system  is  deserving  of  unlimited  pane- 
gyric or  condemnation.  They  have  each  done  best  for  the 
times  in  which  they  lived.  The  rival  schools  have  simply  ex- 
hibited the  oscillations  of  the  pendulum.  At  times  it  may  be 
best  to  create  a  system,  at  times  to  destroy,  at  times  to  recon- 
struct. This  has  been  the  lesson  taught  by  the  history  of 
monarchy  in  England.  The  monarch's  power,  raised  almost 
to  despotism  by  the  Tudors,  was  destroyed,  and  raised  again 
under  the  Stuarts,  and  reconstructed  in  the  Revolution.  I" 
the  conflicts  of  statesmen  we  see  the  clear  exhibition  of  polit: 
ical  truth.  Some  one  truly  said  of  a  debate  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  that  no  one  speech  gave  the  entire  truth,  but  that 
the  entire  truth  is  to  be  gathered  from  all  the  speeches.  We 
mention  such  considerations,  because  in  a  country  like  En- 
gland it  is  most  important  to  moderate  the  acrimony  of  dis- 
cussion, and  that  we  should  understand  that  men  of  all  parties 
work  truly  toward  the  common  wealth.  The  study  of  the  lives 
of  statesmen  is  one  of  the  best  means  of  attaining  to  political 
knowledge,  all-important  in  countries  with  such  constitutions 


STATESMEN.  357 


as  our  own.  They  have  a  special  nobleness,  pathos,  and  im- 
portance of  their  own,  and  their  individual  history  shadows 
off  by  imperceptible  degrees  into  national  history. 

Obliged  to  resort  to  a  principle  of  selection,  we  look  at  some 
points  in  the  lives  of  those  two  illustrious  statesmen,  Pitt  and 
Fox,  who  are  so  closely  and  immediately  connected  with  our 
own  current  history.  It  oddly  happened  that  in  early  youth 
the  two  were  brought  together.  It  so  happened  that  one  day 
Lady  Holland  said  to  her  husband,  "  I  have  been  this  morn- 
ing with  Lady  Hester  Pitt,  and  there  is  little  William  Pitt,  not 
eight  years  old,  and  really  the  cleverest  child  I  ever  saw,  and 
brought  up  so  strictly  and  so  proper  in  his  behavior  that, 
mark  my  words,  that  little  boy  will  be  a  thorn  in  Charles's  side 
as  long  as  he  lives."*  Pitt's  first  speech  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons at  once  established  his  parliamentary  reputation.  Never, 
said  Bishop  Tomline,  were  higher  expectations  formed  of  any 
person  upon  his  first  coming  into  parliament,  and  never  were 
expectations  more  completely  fulfilled.  The  thought  of  the 
great  Chatham  was  in  each  man's  mind,  and  so  paved  the 
way  to  success.  As  soon  as  Pitt  sat  down,  Fox,  with  gener- 
ous warmth,  hurried  up  to  wish  him  joy  of  his  success.!  "  He 
is  not  a  chip  of  the  old  block,"  said  Burke ;  "  he  is  the  old 
block  itself."  There  came  an  important  moment  when  Pitt 
called  on  Fox  to  give  him  Lord  Shelburne's  invitation  to  re- 
enter  with  his  friends  the  service  of  the  crown.  Bishop  Tom- 
line  says,  "  This  was,  I  believe,  the  last  time  Mr.  Pitt  was  in 
a  private  room  with  Mr.  Fox,  and  from  this  period  may  be 
dated  that  political  hostility  which  continued  through  the  re- 
mainder of  their  lives." 

That  was  a  great  moment  when  the  king  sent  for  Pitt  as 
the  only  man  who  could  make  head  against  Fox,  and  resolved 

*  "  Fox  Correspondence,"  edited  by  Lord  Russell.  Vol.  I. 
t  Lord  Stanhope's  "  Pitt." 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


to  govern  through  his  means.  The  youngster  accepted  the 
post  of  premier.  "Without  one  moment's  faltering,  he  re- 
sponded to  the  call."  On  the  afternoon  of  the  very  same  day 
on  which  that  call  was  made,  young  Pepper  Arden  rose  in  his 
place  and  moved  for  a  new  writ  for  the  borough  of  Appleby, 
"  in  the  room  of  the  Right  Honorable  William  Pitt,  who  since 
his  election  has  accepted  the  office  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treas- 
ury and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer."  There  was  immedi- 
ately a  burst  of  loud  and  general  laughter.  It  was  not  alto- 
gether unlike  the  moment  when  Mr.  Disraeli  sat  down  amid 
the  derision  of  the  House,  saying  that  the  time  would  come 
when  they  would  hear  him.  Nevertheless,  he  formed  his  Cab- 
inet, his  majority  increased,  the  influence  of  Fox  declined,  and 
at  the  age  of  twenty-four  the  heaven-born  minister  commenced 
his  long  dictatorship. 

There  was  a  very  touching  passage  in  the  life  of  Pitt  given 
by  Lord  Stanhope,  the  one  love  of  his  lifetime  for  Eleanor 
Eden.  Mr.  Pitt  avows  to  Lord  Auckland  his  love  for  his 
daughter,  and  Lord  Auckland  as  candidly  avows  that  his 
love  might  have  been  fully  appreciated.  But  the  mighty 
premier  of  England — we  might  almost  say  her  uncrowned 
monarch — could  not  marry  because  he  was  not  a  man  of  for- 
tune. The  young  people,  like  multitudes  of  young  people, 
could  not  marry  because  there  was  an  insufficiency  of  means. 
There  would  be  no  provision  for  the  young  lady  in  the  pos- 
sible case  of  her  being  left  a  widow.  Pitt  owns  to  her  father 
that  he  was  not  in  circumstances  in  which  he  could  make  his 
daughter  an  offer  of  marriage.  Lord  Auckland  replies  that 
he  was  aware  in  general  of  the  circumstances  of  pecuniary 
debt  and  difficulty  in  which  Mr.  Pitt  was  involved.  The 
premier  desired  that  all  the  blame,  if  any,  should  be  borne 
by  himself.  And  so  the  matter  terminated. 

Two  points  may  be  mentioned  in  the  career  of  Pitt  which 


STATESMEN. 


259 


had  a  great  effect,  humanly  speaking,  in  bringing  about  its 
termination.  The  first  of  these  rests  on  probable  grounds. 
It  seems  to  have  been  the  condemnation  of  Lord  Melville, 
the  sting  being  that  the  condemnation  was  brought  about 
by  Mr.  Wilberforce,  whose  known  probity  determined  so 
many  wavering  opinions.  Pitt  watched  his  friend  with  in- 
tense interest,  knowing  the  mighty  results  which  the  member 
for  Yorkshire  could  insure.  "  It  required  no  little  effort  to 
resist  the  fascination  of  that  penetrating  eye."  The  second 
Lord  Malmesbury  (Lord  Fitzharris)  says  that  the  numbers  on 
the  vote  being  equal, "  the  speaker,  Abbott  (after  looking  as 
white  as  a  sheet  and  pausing  for  ten  minutes),  gave  the  cast- 
ing vote  against  us.  Pitt  immediately  put  on  the  little  cocked 
hat  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  wearing  when  dressed  for  the 
evening,  and  jammed  it  deeply  over  his  forehead,  and  I  dis- 
tinctly saw  the  tears  trickling  down  his  cheeks."  The  noto- 
rious Colonel  Wardle  said  that  men  wanted  to  see  "how 
Billy  looked  after  it."  Colonel  Legard,  in  a  letter  to  Wilber- 
force, said,  "  I  believe  that  the  delinquency  of  Lord  Melville 
and  the  desertion  of  some  of  his  oldest  friends  inflicted  a 
wound  upon  his  mind  which  it  never  recovered,  and  contrib- 
uted to  his  premature  death."  Mr.  Wilberforce  docketed  the 
letter  with  the  statement,  "  It  did  not  injure  Pitt's  health." 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  the  condemnation  of  Lord  Mel- 
ville, and  the  grief  and  disappointment  of  Pitt,  appear  to  have 
been  a  kind  of  just  retribution  for  the  part  which  they  took 
against  Warren  Hastings.  It  seems  that  both  of  them  had  a 
great  jealousy  against  Warren  Hastings,  fearing  lest  he  should 
obtain  a  seat  in  the  Board  of  Control,  and  distribute  the  valu- 
able patronage  according  to  the  king's  personal  views.  Mr. 
Storer  tells  Mr.  Eden,  afterward  Lord  Auckland,*  "  Mr.  Dun- 
das  said  before  several  persons  the  other  day,  with  that  gener- 
*  "  Auckland  Correspondence,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  472. 


260  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

ous  frankness  which  is  his  characteristic,  that  the  Opposition 
had  done  his  job  for  him — they  had  knocked  up  Mr.  Hastings's 
pretensions  to  the  Board  of  Control,  and  had  ruined  the  Ben- 
gal squad."  If  Pitt  and  Dundas  had  joined  in  the  impeach- 
ment of  Hastings  from  a  selfish  political  motive,  they  certainly 
experienced  a  just  retribution,  which  might  serve  as  a  beacon 
and  example  in  any  annals  of  statesmanship. 

But  the  blow  which  most  certainly  destroyed  Pitt  was  the 
battle  of  Austerlitz.  This  is  called  by  Lord  Stanhope's  father 
"  the  immediate  cause  of  his  death."  There  came  on  him  the 
care-worn  and  unhappy  aspect  which  Wilberforce  called  "  the 
Austerlitz  look."  On  his  return  from  Bath,  as  he  passed  along 
the  passage  of  his  Putney  villa,  he  saw  a  map  of  Europe,  and 
mournfully  said,  "  Roll  up  that  map ;  it  will  not  be  wanted 
these  ten  years."  Only  suppose  that  he  could  have  known 
that  the  distinguished  Indian  officer  whom  he  met  hardly  two 
months  before  at  Lord  Camden's  table — one  Arthur  Wellesley 
— was  destined  to  pluck  out  the  eyes  of  the  French  eagle,  and 
to  chain  it  to  a  rock. 

Fox  got  into  parliament  before  he  was  twenty-one,  and 
had  made  some  good  speeches,  but  none  of  them  with  the 
success  that  had  attended  Pitt's  first  effort.  King  George 
early  took  a  dislike  to  him.  "  That  young  man  has  so  strong- 
ly cast  off  every  principle  of  common  honor  and  honesty, 
that  he  must  become  as  contemptible  as  he  is  odious."  Put- 
ting out  of  account  his  first  junior  lordship  at  the  Admiralty, 
Fox  was  not  quite  twenty  months  in  office  altogether.  It 
must  be  owned  that  in  England  statesmanship  was  a  very 
poorly  remunerated  profession.  Fox,  with  his  immorality, 
gambling,  and  drunkenness,  was  scarcely  fitted  to  sway  a  na- 
tion where  character  counts  for  at  least  as  much  as  clever- 
ness. Walpole  tells  a  strange  story,  which  Lord  Holland  rec- 
ognizes, of  an  impostor  calling  herself  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Grieve, 


STATESMEN.  261 


who  undertook  to  get  him  a  young  West  Indian  heiress  as 
his  wife,  with  a  fortune  of  eighty  thousand  pounds.  He  ulti- 
mately married  his  mistress,  Mrs.  Armistead,  and  had  not  the 
generosity  to  own  that  she  was  his  wife.  Lord  Russell  has 
some  terrible  words  on  Fox :  "  His  life  had  from  his  youth 
been  one  of  indulged  passion  and  loose  morality."  The  de- 
tection of  Fox's  illness  was  made  by  Lord  Lauderdale.  Fox 
had  gone  to  Cheltenham,  no  one  suspecting  that  he  had  any 
serious  complaint;  but  Lord  Lauderdale,  whose  father  had 
died  of  the  dropsy,  first  called  the  attention  of  Fox's  friends 
to  the  swelling  of  his  legs  and  the  falling  off  about  his  neck 
and  chest. 

Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  indicates  what  he  considers  was 
the  great  turning-point  in  the  life  of  Fox.  "We  believe  that 
Fox's  decision  to  separate  himself  from  Lord  Shelburne  was 
the  turning-point  of  his  political  life,  and  exercised  an  enor- 
mous influence  upon  the  subsequent  course  of  events."  The 
way  in  which  Fox  deserted  Lord  Shelburne,  on  an  imputation 
of  insincerity,  and  formed  a  coalition  with  Lord  North,  is  a  re- 
markable chapter  in  politics.  As  Mr.  Disraeli  says,  "  England 
does  not  love  coalitions,  and  henceforth  he  continues  in  hope- 
less opposition  to  Pitt." 

Fox,  a  middle-aged  man,  growing  old,  has  left  his  vices,  or 
his  vices  have  left  him.  He  is  enjoying  his  luxurious  retire- 
ment at  St.  Ann's  Hill,  and  gratifying  that  passionate  love  of 
Greek  literature  which  appears  to  be  innate  in  the  higher  or- 
der of  English  statesmen.  Fox's  death,  which  happened  rath- 
er suddenly,  is  represented  as  a  kind  of  euthanasia.  "  Read 
me,"  said  the  dying  man,  "  the  Eighth  Book  of  Virgil."  His 
last  words  were,  "  Liz,"  meaning  his  wife,  and  "  I  die  happy." 
Lord  Russell  concludes  his  chapter  with  Lord  Holland's  re- 
mark :  "  If  a  consciousness  of  being  beloved  and  almost 
adored  by  all  who  approached  him,  could  minister  consolation 


262  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

in  the  hour  of  death,  no  man  could  with  more  reason  or  pro- 
priety have  closed  his  career  with  the  exclamation  of  "  I  die 
happy,"  for  no  man  ever  deserved  or  obtained  that  consolation 
more  certainly  than  Mr.  Fox."  Perhaps,  however,  we  might 
desire  a  consolation  even  firmer  and  better  than  this. 

I  can  not  think  that  Lord  Russell's  estimate  of  Pitt  is  alto- 
gether impartial  or  even  just.  Lord  Russell  never  for  a  mo- 
ment loses  the  politician  in  his  attempt  to  be  biographer  and 
historian.  He  entirely  disapproves  of  Pitt's  first  war  with 
France,  which  saddled  us  with  the  main  burden  of  the  nation- 
al debt,  as  altogether  unnecessary.  He  does  not,  however, 
appear  to  me  to  do  justice  to  the  point  of  view  in  which  the 
majority  of  the  nation  looked  on  the  matter;  neither  can  I  be- 
lieve that  Pitt  was  fighting  without  any  defined  views  of  the 
object  of  the  contest.  He  is  entirely  in  favor  of  that  second 
war,  after  the  rupture  of  Amiens,  in  part  of  which  Fox  was 
foreign  secretary.  Lord  Russell  does  not  appear  to  be  very 
consistent  in  his  opinion  of  the  conduct  and  character  of  Na- 
poleon. He  can  hardly  mean  both  the  one  and  the  other  of 
the  following  sentences : 

"  It  was  not  possible,  surely,  for  "  He  (Napoleon)  meant  to  be  un- 
the  First  Consul  to  show,  by  experi-  disputed  master  of  the  continent  of 
ence,  his  inclination  and  love  of  Europe,  to  change  the  disposition 
peace,  while  he  was  forced  by  his  of  territories  and  the  form  of  gov- 
enemies  to  carry  on  war  with  all  the  ernment  of  various  countries  at  his 
vigor  he  could  command." — Page  pleasure,  and  to  impose  silence  on 
200.  all  who  might  feel  alarmed  or  in- 

dignant at  the  violence  of  his  acts 
and  the  insolence  of  his  language." 
— Page  264. 

Lord  Russell  thinks  that  King  George  made  a  master  of 
kingcraft,  and  yet  sneers  at  him  because  he  refused  Fox  as 
his  minister  before  the  death  of  Pitt,  and  accepted  him  after- 
ward. But  this  very  ability  to  discern  the  signs  of  the  times, 


STATESMEN.  263 


and  not  to  aim  at  impossibilities,  is  the  very  difference  between 
our  Stuart  and  Hanoverian  princes.  We  have  the  manifesta- 
tion of  great  contempt  for  the  royal  understanding.  Certain- 
ly it  was  nothing  better  than  that  of  the  average  merchant 
and  squire  and  rector.  But  average  merchants,  rectors,  and 
squires  make  up  a  considerable  section  of  the  state,  and  it  was 
as  well  that  they  should  have  so  potent  a  voice  as  the  king's 
in  the  councils  of  their  country.  "The  national  heart  still 
beats  true  to  George  III.,"  truly  said  Mr.  Thackeray.  With 
all  his  drawbacks  and  thick-headedness,  he  was  honest,  he 
was  pure,  he  was  self-denying,  he  was  religious,  and,  thank 
God,  these  are  qualities  which  the  great  mass  of  Englishmen 
will  always  appreciate. 

Fox's  death  was  a  euthanasia.  Pitt's,  certainly,  was  not ; 
he  died  a  miserable  man.  "  My  country,  how  I  leave  my  coun- 
try !"  were  his  last  words,  extorted  by  his  grief  for  Austerlitz. 
It  is,  we  believe,  a  fact,  that  a  visitor,  calling  at  his  Putney 
villa,  found  it  deserted  by  his  hireling  servants,  and  passed 
through  one  deserted  room  after  another,  till  he  came  to  the 
chamber  where  the  statesman  was  lying  dead.  When  last 
thoughts  came  with  his  last  illness,  he  was  not  happy,  and  he 
was  not  prepared.  His  friend,  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  would 
have  administered  the  sacrament,  but  Pitt  said  he  had  not 
strength  to  go  through  with  it.  He  said  that  "he  had,  as  he 
feared  was  the  case  with  many  others,  neglected  prayer  too 
much  to  allow  him  to  hope  it  could  be  very  efficacious  now." 
Yet  he  was  enabled  to  pray  earnestly,  and  to  look  back  with 
some  satisfaction  on  his  innocency  of  life.  He  said  :  "  I  throw 
myself  entirely  upon  the  mercy  of  God,  through  the  merits  of 
Christ." 

"  It  has  been  the  misfortune  of  many  great  statesmen  that 
they  have  regarded  religion  simply  as  a  social  organization,  or 
as  an  instrument  of  government,  or  as  an  important  element 


264  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

of  public  opinion.  It  is  impossible  that  Virgilian  cadences 
should  effectually  soothe  a  dying-bed.  At  the  last,  as  in  the 
case  of  Pitt,  one  must  fall  back  upon  principles  that  ought  to 
have  been  tested  and  proved,  and  not  now  to  be  learned  for 
the  first  time.  We  could  not  wish  that  the  death-bed  of  such 
a  one  should  be  other  than  troubled  and  disturbed,  nor  yet 
could  any  last  words  better  become  any  of  us  than  those  of 
poor  Pitt :  '  I  throw  myself  entirely  upon  the  mercy  of  God, 
through  the  merits  of  Christ.'  " 

We  will  now  glance  at  the  fortunes  of  a  fallen  statesman. 
We  will  seek  a  view  of  Lord  Clarendon's  inner  life,  with  which 
the  public  is  not  very  familiar,  and  which  must  mainly  be 
sought  for  in  his  minor  writings. 

There  are  very  few  men  who,  in  so  large  a  manner  as  Lord 
Clarendon,  have  both  lived  history  and  written  history.  To  a 
great  degree,  our  knowledge  of  the  times  during  which  he  lived 
is  derived  from  his  own  immortal  writings.  During  those  times 
there  are  few  names  which  emerge  more  frequently,  or  with 
broader  influence,  than  his  own.  In  the  momentous  period 
of  the  Long  Parliament  his  influence  is  first  seen  on  the  side 
of  the  people,  and  then  on  the  side  of  the  crown.  He  was 
the  leader  of  his  party  in  the  House  of  Commons ;  he  was 
lord  chancellor  in  the  House  of  Lords ;  for  many  years  he 
was  prime  minister  of  England ;  he  became  the  grandfather 
of  two  English  sovereigns.  There  has  been  no  other  English 
subject  on  whom  such  an  accumulation  of  honors  has  thus 
rested.  For  many  years  his  career  was  singularly  chequered, 
exhibiting  various  efforts  and  faults,  but  at  the  same  time  great 
endurance  and  great  virtues;  and  through  good  report  and 
evil  report,  through  good  estate  and  evil  estate,  he  clung  close 
to  the  faith  and  hope  of  a  Christian  man.  At  last  came  his 
extraordinary  elevation,  and  from  that  giddy  eminence  as  ex- 


STATESMEN.  265 


traordinary  a  fall.  In  exile,  in  poverty,  in  obloquy,  closed  that 
long  and  eventful  career,  so  imperishably  bound  up  with  En- 
glish history  and  English  literature.  His  last  days,  though 
his  saddest,  were  his  happiest  and  his  best ;  his  fall  proved  to 
be  a  rising  again,  and  he  learned  to  look  upon  banishment  as 
a  season  of  rest,  as  a  quiet  pause,  as  a  solemn  audit  of  the  past, 
before  his  active,  crowded  career  came  to  an  end  on  earth.  It 
would  be  foreign  to  our  purpose  to  enter  into  any  details  of 
this  period's  political  events.  We  take  up  the  personal  his- 
tory of  Lord  Clarendon  at  the  time  when  he  became  a  con- 
spicuous actor  in  the  stirring  events  of  his  times.  He  had 
been  known  as  a  great  lawyer ;  he  now  appeared  in  the  char- 
acter of  a  great  statesman.  Wherever  a  liberty  was  to  be  as- 
serted, a  wrong  to  be  redressed,  an  inquiry  to  be  instituted,  a 
tyrannical  institution  to  be  abolished,  a  grievous  criminal  to 
be  exposed,  Edward  Hyde  was  among  the  first  and  foremost 
on  the  popular  side.  But  after  a  time,  rightly  or  wrongly,  he 
became  firmly  convinced  that  this  side  was  pushing  things 
too  far,  and  to  an  extent  which  neither  his  conscience  nor  rea- 
son approved.  He  threw  the  whole  weight  of  his  influence 
into  the  declining  side  of  the  royalists,  and  withdrew  to  York 
to  be  in  attendance  on  the  king.  He  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  very  popular  among  the  party  whom  he  thus  joined. 
Though  he  went  over  to  the  court,  he  carried  thither  the  stern, 
rigid  virtues  of  a  republican,  which  rarely,  indeed,  find  much 
favor  among  courtiers  ;  an  intrepidity  in  speaking  unwelcome 
truth,  a  strict  justice  and  moderation,  a  high-minded,  incor- 
ruptible spirit.  He  was  of  great  use  to  his  party  in  the  paper 
war  that  preceded  actual  hostilities ;  but  when  the  military 
operations  commenced,  Hyde  ceased  for  a  time  to  appear  in 
a  prominent  position. 

Perceiving  that  the  times  in  which  he  lived  were  perhaps 
the  most  memorable  in  the  whole  course  of  English  history, 

M 


-56  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

he  had  commenced,  while  yet  in  Scilly,  the  "  History  of  the 
Great  Rebellion,"  a  work  disfigured,  indeed,  by  inaccuracies, 
by  personal  feelings,  and  political  partisanship,  but  of  com- 
manding merits  which  have  made  it  classic.  He  continued 
it  in  Jersey.  He  was  in  the  island  for  about  two  years,  "  and 
enjoyed,"  as  he  was  wont  to  say,  "  the  greatest  tranquillity  of 
mind  imaginable."  After  a  time,  first  one  of  his  friends  was 
obliged  to  leave  him,  and  then  the  other.  Sir  George  Carteret 
then  received  him  into  Elizabeth  Castle.  Here  he  built  him- 
self a  lodging  of  two  or  three  rooms,  and  over  the  door  of  his 
lodging  he  set  up  his  arms  with  a  Latin  inscription :  "  Bene 
vixit  qui  latuit"  (He  has  lived  well  who  has  escaped  notice). 
"  And  he  always  took  pleasure  in  relating  with  what  great 
tranquillity  of  spirit  he  spent  his  time  here,  among  his  books, 
which  he  got  from  Paris,  and  his  papers,  between  which  he  sel- 
dom spent  less  than  ten  hours  in  the  day."  King  Charles  him- 
self sent  him  a  variety  of  materials  for  his  work.  When  the 
Prince  of  Wales  left  France,  Hyde  received  directions  from 
the  king  and  queen  to  be  in  attendance  upon  them.  The 
happy  seclusion  of  Jersey  was  at  once  abandoned  for  a  life 
of  wandering  and  privation.  The  ship  in  which  he  sailed  to 
Holland  was  seized  by  a  privateer,  and  he  was  robbed  of  a 
sum  of  money  which  he  could  ill  afford  to  lose.  By-and-by 
Charles  II.  sent  him  on  an  unsatisfactory  embassy  to  Madrid. 
Here  Hyde,  who  always  writes  of  himself  as  "  the  chancellor" 
— for  he  had  received  the  empty  office  of  chancellor  of  the 
exchequer  at  the  mimic  court  of  Charles — studied  the  coun- 
try and  language,  and  commenced  his  "Devotions  on  the 
Psalms."  On  his  return  he  took  up  his  abode  at  Antwerp,  as 
embassador.  Charles,  after  the  battle  of  Worcester,  having 
escaped  to  Paris,  required  his  services  there ;  and  he  resided 
at  Paris  and  elsewhere,  in  close  attendance  on  hie  wandering 
and  unfortunate  sovereign.  From  the  Clarendob  papers  we 


STATESMEN. 


can  see  the  straits  to  which  he  was  reduced,  and  the  manner 
in  which  he  bore  them.  "  I  do  not  know  that  any  man  is  yet 
dead  for  want  of  bread,  which  really  I  wonder  at.  Five  or  six 
of  us  eat  together  one  meal  a  day,  for  a  pistole  a  week ;  but 
all  of  us  owe  for  God  knows  how  many  weeks  to  the  poor 
woman  that  feeds  us."  "  At  this  time  I  have  neither  clothes 
nor  fire  to  preserve  me  from  the  sharpness  of  the  season."  "  I 
am  so  cold  that  I  am  scarce  able  to  hold  my  pen,  and  have 
not  three  sous  in  the  world  to  buy  a  fagot."  "I  have  not 
been  master  of  a  crown  these  many  months,  am  cold  for  want 
of  clothes  and  fire,  and  owe  for  all  the  meat  I  have  eaten  these 
three  months,  and  to  a  poor  woman  who  is  no  longer  able  to 
trust ;  and  my  poor  family  at  Antwerp  (which  breaks  my  heart) 
is  in  as  sad  a  state  as  I  am."  "  Keep  up  your  spirits,  and 
take  heed  of  sinking  under  that  burden  you  never  kneeled  to 
take  up.  Our  innocence  begets  our  cheerfulness ;  and  that 
again  will  be  a  means  to  secure  the  other.  Whoever  grows 
too  weary  and  impatient  of  the  condition  he  is  in  will  too  im- 
patiently project  to  get  out  of  it ;  and  that,  by  degrees,  will 
shake  or  baffle  or  delude  his  innocence.  We  have  no  reason 
to  blush  for  the  poverty  which  is  not  brought  upon  us  by  our 
own  faults.  As  long  as  it  pleases  God  to  give  us  health 
(which,  I  thank  him,  I  have  in  a  great  measure),  I  shall  think 
he  intends  me  to  outlive  all  these  sufferings ;  and  when  he 
sends  sickness,  I  shall  (I  hope  with  the  same  submission)  be- 
lieve that  he  intends  to  remove  me  from  greater  calamities." 
"  I  have  no  other  counsel  to  give  you  than,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  I  mean  to  follow  myself,  which  is  to  submit  to  God's 
pleasure  and  judgment  upon  me,  and  to  starve,  really  and  lit- 
erally, with  the  comfort  of  having  endeavored  to  avoid  it  by 
all  honest  means,  and  rather  to  bear  it  than  do  any  thing  con- 
trary to  my  duty." 

The  evil  days  seemed  over  at  last:  in  1660  came  the  Res- 


268  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

toration.  Hitherto  his  title  had  only  been  an  empty  mock- 
ery ;  it  now  became  a  splendid  reality.  And  yet  this  period 
of  grandeur  and  greatness  to  which  we  now  approach  in  Hyde's 
career  is  the  least  pleasing  in  the  retrospect.  He  had  nobly 
withstood  the  effects  of  adversity ;  he  by  no  means  endured 
with  equal  success  the  influence  of  prosperity.  The  prosper- 
ity was  as  magnificent  as  his  adversity  had  been  protracted 
and  deep.  And  now  painful  blots  upon  his  character  began 
to  appear,  which  had  hitherto  escaped  the  notice  of  others, 
and  perhaps  his  own,  and  which,  perhaps,  required  the  fierce 
heat  of  prosperity  for  their  manifestation.  He  appears  to  have 
been  greedy  of  power  and  grasping  of  gain.  The  sumptuous 
pile  of  Clarendon  House,  which  he  was  raising  for  himself, 
betrayed  an  ostentatious  magnificence.  Sometimes  he  ap- 
pears to  have  erred  in  departing  from  strict  veracity.  In 
some  measure  he  must  have  forfeited  his  own  dignity  and 
self-respect.  He  himself,  in  the  long  days  of  banishment  and 
old  age,  confessed  to  himself  how  much  he  had  erred,  and 
how  greatly  he  had  forgotten  higher  things  in  this  season 
of  brilliant  sunshine.  He  confessed  that  those  prosperous 
days  contrasted  ill  with  the  calmness  and  happiness  of  his 
days  of  loneliness  and  want.  If  he  had  been  content  to  take 
a  full  share  in  the  wickedness  of  those  wicked  times,  his  lofty 
position  might  have  been  safe.  Thank  God,  he  was  preserved 
from  that. 

Old  Pepys  has,  in  his  "  Diary,"  two  or  three  passages  that 
mark  the  decline  and  fall  of  Clarendon.  Pepys  has  given  the 
graphic  account  of  the  circumstances  of  Clarendon's  departure 
from  his  final  interview  with  the  king,  on  which  Mr.  Ward's 
celebrated  painting,  "The  Fall  of  Clarendon,"  is  founded. 
The  courtiers,  when  they  saw  him,  used  to  tell  the  king  that 
his  "schoolmaster"  was  coming.  They  used  to  mimic  the 
chancellor  for  the  royal  amusement.  We  are  told  that  the  in- 


STATESMEN.  269 


famous  Duke  of  Buckingham  was  peculiarly  successful  in  imi- 
tating "  the  stately  walk  of  that  solemn  personage."  The  king 
at  first  feebly  reproved,  and  then  delighted  at  this  buffoonery 
at  the  expense  of  his  old  and  faithful  servant.  Clarendon 
now  seriously  crossed  the  royal  path.  At  last  Charles  sent 
the  earl  a  message  recommending  him  immediately  to  resign 
the  great  seal.  In  reply  the  falling  minister  requested  an  au- 
dience. The  king  could  not  with  any  decency  refuse  this, 
and  appointed  him  to  come  on  a  certain  day  after  breakfast. 
The  day  of  the  appointed  interview  was  known  to  all  the  court- 
iers. The  event,  of  course,  excited  the  highest  interest.  A 
private  conversation  of  two  hours  ensued.  As  they  came  forth 
from  the  conference,  the  courtiers  eagerly  watched  the  expres- 
sion of  both  their  countenances.  They  thought  that  both  faces 
looked  "very  thoughtful."  Pepys  says  that  the  king's  infa- 
mous paramour  "  ran  out  into  her  aviary,  and  stood  blessing 
herself  at  the  old  man's  going  away ;  and  several  of  the  gal- 
lants of  Whitehall  (of  which  there  were  many  staying  to  see 
the  chancellor's  return)  did  talk  to  her  in  her  bird-cage." 
Clarendon,  in  his  "  Life,"  has  an  allusion  to  the  dissolute  crew 
who  were  waiting  about,  eagerly  hoping  for  his  disgrace.  For 
some  days  the  king  took  no  further  steps.  The  courtiers  were 
greatly  alarmed  at  this.  With  ceaseless  importunities  they 
taunted  him  on  his  subserviency  to  "  a  cunning  old  lawyer, 
and  nearly  lectured  him  out  of  his  wits."  Then  the  king 
yielded,  and  sent  a  secretary  of  state  with  a  warrant  under  the 
sign-manual  to  demand  the  great  seal.  When  the  secretary 
returned  with  this  coveted  ensign  of  office,  a  base  courtier 
clasped  his  majesty's  knees,  exclaiming,  "  Sir,  you  are  now  a 
king." 

Assuredly  there  was  a  great  fall  here ;  but  still  Clarendon's 
enemies  were  not  satisfied.  Perhaps  they  dreaded  his  future 
return  to  power.  They  determined  to  prevent  this — they 


270 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


thirsted  for  his  blood — they  brought  against  him  an  impeach- 
ment for  high-treason.  The  late  Lord  Chancellor  Campbell 
has  characterized  the  articles  of  the  impeachment  as  "  prepos- 
terously vague  and  absurd."  There  seemed  little  chance  of 
a  conviction  against  him.  The  king  was  anxious  that  he 
should  leave  the  country  :  this  would  be  enough  to  satisfy  his 
enemies.  Very  unwillingly,  but  in  obedience  to  the  king's 
wish,  which  he  had  always  treated  with  almost  absolute  sub- 
mission, Clarendon  withdrew  beyond  the  seas.  His  enemies 
seized  upon  this  as  an  occasion  against  him.  They  passed  a 
bill  through  parliament  banishing  him  forever,  and  making 
his  return  an  act  of  high-treason.  The  days  which  followed 
are  generally  looked  upon  as  the  most  sombre  in  Clarendon's 
career ;  but  those  who  take  a  more  solemn  view  of  life,  and 
chiefly  regard  a  man's  highest  interests,  will  turn  away  with 
relief  from  the  thronged  galleries  of  Whitehall,  and  the  rising 
glories  of  Clarendon  House,  to  Montpellier,  to  Moulins,  and 
to  Rouen. 

With  a  well-nigh  broken  heart  and  enfeebled  form  he  be- 
took himself  to  France.  The  French  government  treated  him 
alternately  with  harshness  and  consideration,  according  to  the 
variations  of  their  political  relations  with  the  English  govern- 
ment. After  many  chequered  days  he  settled  himself  for  a 
time  at  Montpellier.  Here  he  finished  his  little  work  on  the 
Psalms.  He  has  prefaced  this  by  a  letter  to  his  children,  from 
which  we  make  some  quotations,  as  giving  in  the  best  form 
the  state  of  mind  to  which  his  fall  had  brought  him : 

"  My  children,  you  have  undergone  so  great  a  share  with 
me  in  all  the  inconveniences  and  afflictions  of  my  banish- 
ment, that  it  is  but  justice  to  assign  you  a  share  likewise  of 
whatsoever  I  have  gotten  by  them ;  and  I  do  confess  to  you 
I  found  so  great  a  serenity  and  tranquillity  of  mind  in  com- 
posing these  considerations  and  reflections  upon  the  Psalms 


STATESMEN.  271 


of  David,  that  I  am  willing  to  believe  that  the  reading  them 
may  administer  some  kind  of  relief  and  ease  to  you  in  any 
trouble  or  adversity  to  which  you  may  be  exposed.  In  all 
times  somewhat  extraordinary  hath  been  thought  to  be  con- 
tained therein  for  the  instruction,  encouragement,  and  refor- 
mation of  mankind,  and  for  the  rendering  our  lives  more  ac- 
ceptable to  God  Almighty.  ...  I  began  to  exercise  myself 
in  these  meditations  in  the  time  of  a  former  banishment,  when, 
to  the  public  calamities  with  which  the  king  and  the  kingdom 
were  afflicted,  and  to  my  own  particular,  my  forced  absence 
for  so  many  years  from  your  dear  mother  and  from  you,  the 
nature  of  that  employment  I  had  from  the  king,  and  the  scene 
upon  which  that  employment  was  to  be  acted,  added  very 
much  to  the  melancholique  of  the  condition  I  was  in.  ...  It 
pleased  God,  by  a  chain  of  miracles,  at  last  to  bring  that  to 
pass  which  all  the  world  thought  impossible  to  be  done.  .  .  . 
And  in  this  miraculous  restoration  and  prosperity  I  had  my 
full  share,  which  I  enjoyed  many  years,  in  an  envious  propor- 
tion of  the  king's  favor  and  good  opinion,  which  I  had  endeav- 
ored to  preserve  by  all  the  industry  and  fidelity  a  servant  so 
obliged  ought  to  perform ;  having  (God  knows)  never  any 
thing  before  my  eyes  or  in  my  purposes  but  the  king's  honor 
and  happiness.  ...  I  have  too  much  cause  to  believe  -and 
confess  that,  though,  to  the  utmost  of  my  power,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  understanding  God  hath  given  me,  which  no  doubt 
hath  many  defects,  I  have  not  failed  in  the  performance  of  my 
duty  to  the  king  and  to  the  country,  I  have  abundantly  failed 
in  my  duty  to  my  God,  and  not  enough  remembered  his  par- 
ticular saving  blessings  and  deliverances  of  myself  and  family 
in  the  time  of  my  adversity  and  banishment,  nor  the  vows  and 
promises  I  then  made  to  him  ;  and  for  that  reason  he  hath 
exposed  me  to  new  troubles  and  reproaches  for  crimes  I  am 
in  no  degree  guilty  of,  and  condemned  me  to  a  new  banish- 


272  TURNING-POINTS   IN  LIFE. 


nient  in  my  age,  when  I  am  not  able  to  struggle  with  those 
difficulties  that  encompass  me.  I  am  sure  I  discontinued  this 
heavenly  exercise  upon  the  Psalms  themselves  and  the  whole 
body  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  God,  in  his  great  mercy,  awaken- 
ed me  out  of  the  lethargy  I  was  in,  by  reproaches  I  least  ap- 
prehended, and  a  judgment  I  least  expected  or  suspected,  and 
drove  me  out  of  that  sunshine  that  dazzled  me,  withdrew  the 
king's  favor  from  me,  out  of  that  crowd  of  business  that  stifled 
all  other  thoughts,  and  condemned  me  to  such  a  solitariness 
and  desertion  as  must  reduce  my  giddy  and  wandering  soul 
to  some  recollection  and  steadiness."  He  learned  to  speak 
of  his  banishment  as  his  "  third  and  most  blessed  recess,  in 
which  God  vouchsafed  to  exercise  many  of  his  mercies  toward 
him."  Three  such  "recesses  or  acquiesces"  he  used  to  reck- 
on up  in  his  life.  The  first  of  these  was  when  he  was  living 
in  Jersey;  the  second,  when  he  was  embassador  at  Madrid; 
the  third  was  his  final  banishment.  He  used  to  say  that,  of 
the  infinite  blessings  which  God  had  vouchsafed  to  bestow 
upon  him  from  his  cradle,  he  used  to  esteem  himself  so  hap- 
py in  none  as  in  these  :  "  In  every  one  of  which  God  had  given 
him  grace  and  opportunity  to  make  full  reflections  upon  his 
actions  and  his  observations,  upon  what  he  had  done  himself 
and  what  he  had  seen  others  do  and  suffer;  to  repair  the 
breaches  in  his  own  mind,  and  to  fortify  himself  with  new  res- 
olutions against  future  encounters  in  an  entire  resignation 
of  all  his  thoughts  and  purposes  into  the  disposal  of  God  Al- 
mighty, and  in  a  firm  confidence  of  his  protection  and  deliv- 
erance in  all  the  difficulties  he  should  be  obliged  to  contend 
with ;  toward  the  obtaining  whereof  he  resumed  those  vows 
and  promises  of  integrity  and  hearty  endeavors  which  are  the 
only  means  to  procure  the  continuance  of  that  protection  and 
deliverance." 

Yet,  as  the  years  rolled  on,  the  old  man  earnestly  desired 


STATESMEN.  273 


"once  more  to  see  his  native  country  "  before  he  went  hence  to 
be  no  more  seen."  To  the  last  the  fond  hope  was  always  be- 
fore him  that  he  might  yet  be  restored  to  something  of  his  old 
position.  He  removed  to  Rouen,  that  he  might  at  least  have 
the  melancholy  satisfaction  of  being  so  much  nearer  to  En- 
glish soil.  He  sent  a  petition  to  the  unfeeling  king  that  he 
might  be  allowed  to  die  among  his  children.  "  Seven  years," 
he  pleaded,  "  was  a  time  prescribed  and  limited  by  God  him- 
self for  the  expiations  of  some  of  his  greatest  judgments  ;  and 
it  is  full  that  time  since  I  have,  with  all  possible  humility,  sus- 
tained the  insupportable  weight  of  the  king's  displeasure. 
Since  it  will  not  be  in  any  one's  power  long  to  prevent  me 
from  dying,  methinks  the  desiring  a  place  to  die  in  should  not 
be  thought  a  great  presumption." 

It  was  not  so  to  be.  The  worthless  monarch  did  not  even 
vouchsafe  a  word  of  answer  to  this  pathetic  appeal.  Rouen 
was  to  prove  the  last  scene  of  his  wanderings.  He  died  there 
one  winter  day,  in  the  cold,  friendless  winter  of  his  life,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-five. 

The  moral  of  the  fall  of  Clarendon  is  this — the  moral  to 
how  many  a  sad  narrative  of  a  statesman's  broken  hopes  and 
broken  heart ! — 

"  It  is  better  to  trust  in  the  Lord  than  to  put  any  confidence 
in  man." 

"  It  is  better  to  trust  in  the  Lord  than  to  put  any  confidence 
in  princes." 

Descending  the  stream  of  politics  still  farther,  we  take  a 
glance  at  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis,  whose  recent  "  Life 
and  Letters"  give  us  a  view  of  some  aspects  of  the  statesman- 
ship of  our  own  days. 

Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  was  one  of  those  great  states- 
men which  Christ  Church  within  the  century  has  given  to  the 

M  2 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


country.  His  success  as  a  scholar  and  a  thinker  always  ran" 
parallel  with  his  success  as  an  administrator  and  as  a  parlia- 
mentary speaker.  He  owed  his  success  as  much  to  his  moral 
as  to  his  intellectual  faculties.  No  chancellor  of  the  ex- 
chequer ever  inspired  city  men  with  a  greater  degree  of  con- 
fidence. His  brief,  straightforward,  inornate  addresses  were 
received  with  a  degree  of  favor  hardly  accorded  to  the  most 
scenic  budgets  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  or  the  most  brilliant  orations 
of  Mr.  Disraeli.  The  utmost  confidence  was  felt  in  his  sim- 
plicity and  good  faith,  and  at  the  same  time  it  was  fully  under- 
stood that  his  conclusions  were  the  results  of  anxious  inquiry 
and  sound  reasoning.  But  at  the  same  time  it  would  hardly 
be  thought  that  he  was  the  man  to  meet  safely  a  great  finan- 
cial crisis,  and  although  it  is  probable  that,  had  he  lived  lon- 
ger, he  might  have  been  the  premier  of  a  Whig  administra- 
tion, yet  possibly  he  would  have  been  little  more  than  the 
bond  of  union  to  join  together  stronger  spirits.  The  same 
characteristics  belonged  to  the  literary  as  to  the  political  life 
of  Sir  George  Lewis,  and  even  in  a  greater  degree.  He  was 
happier  as  the  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  than  as  the 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  Indeed,  the  former  employment 
was  much  more  to  his  taste  than  the  latter.  In  the  field  of 
criticism,  particularly  in  the  field  of  negative  criticism,  he  was 
pre-eminent.  His,  in  an  especial  way,  was  Bacon's  lumen  sic- 
cum.  He  pulled  down  even  the  ruins  of  those  historical  struct- 
ures which  Niebuhr  had  left.  He  was  little  more  than  de- 
structive, was  in  no  degree  synthetic,  and  had  more  "light" 
than  "  sweetness."  Those  who  are  acquainted  with  Dr.  New- 
man's late  remarkable  work, "  Essays  toward  a  Grammar  of 
Assent,"  and  can  conceive  a  direct  contradiction  to  its  every 
page,  will  be  able  to  form  an  idea  of  Sir  George's  governing 
mental  characteristics.  The  result  is  that  he  was  not  much 
better  than  an  iconoclast,  and  has  not  left — we  had  almost 


STATESMEN.  275 


said  was  incapable  of  leaving — any  durable  monument  to  pos- 
terity. 

There  are  many  points  of  interest  presented  by  the  political 
and  intellectual  history  of  Sir  George  Lewis.  Most  of  his  let- 
ters were  written  at  a  time  when  letter-writing  was  still  an  art, 
and  postage  was  so  expensive  that  people  were  anxious  to 
gain  the  value  of  the  money.  They  are,  therefore,  written 
with  a  fullness  which,  we  are  afraid,  will  be  wanting  to  the  let- 
ters of  the  next  generation  of  statesmen  and  authors.  He 
speaks  with  certain  severity  of  some  of  his  contemporaries, 
but  perhaps  not  more  severely  than  the  truth  would  warrant ; 
yet  it  is  easy  to  see,  on  the  surface  of  the  letters,  that,  though 
endued  with  a  common -sense  which  amounted  to  positive 
genius,  he  made  several  egregious  blunders  in  his  reasoning. 
For  instance,  through  the  unhopefulness  of  his  nature  he  ex- 
pected nothing  but  disappointments  in  the  expedition  to  the 
Crimea,  and,  through  his  inability  to  sympathize  with  forms  of 
genius  not  akin  to  his  own,  he  could  see  little  that  was  likely 
to  be  permanently  popular  in  the  works  of  Dickens  or  Macau^ 
lay.  In  his  own  mind  he  gave  literature  a  distinct  preference 
over  politics.  The  meeting  of  parliament  is  "  that  abomina- 
ble meeting  of  parliament."  After  he  had  lost  his  seat  it  was 
with  difficulty  that  he  consented  to  re-enter  the  House  once 
more,  and  with  regret  that  he  became  a  cabinet  minister. 
The  main  interest  of  his  letters  lies  in  their  touches  of  con- 
temporary politics  and  literature,  which  will  be  a  help  toward 
the  construction  of  the  history  of  the  period  to  which  they  re- 
late. When  he  succeeded  the  present  premier  as  chancellor 
of  the  exchequer,  he  writes  to  say  that  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been 
very  kind  to  him,  and  helped  him  very  much.  He  was  very 
severe  on  Macaulay's  article  on  Bacon  :  "  His  remarks  on  an- 
cient philosophy  are,  for  the  most  part,  shallow  and  ignorant 
in  the  extreme.  .  .  .  There  is  generally  a  want  .of  sound- 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


ness  and  coherency,  and  a  puerile  and  almost  girlish  affecta- 
tion of  tinsel  ornament,  which,  coming  from  a  man  of  nearly 
forty,  convince  me  that  Macaulay  will  never  be  any  thing 
more  than  a  rhetorician."  There  is  much  substantial  justice 
in  this  criticism,  but  at  the  same  time  we  see  that  Sir  George 
was  totally  incapable  of  appreciating  an  order  of  mind  with 
which  he  had  nothing  in  common.  Lewis  had  not  a  spark 
of  Macaulay's  genuine  brilliancy,  and  the  result  is  that  thou- 
sands have  read  Macaulay  where  only  a  reader  here  and  there 
knows  of  the  "  Methods  of  Observation  and  Reasoning  in  Pol- 
itics," and  the  "  Enquiry  into  the  Credibility  of  Early  Roman 
History."  His  latest  and  perhaps  his  best  book  was  a  col- 
lection of  articles  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  on  the  Adminis- 
trations of  Great  Britain  from  1783  to  1830.  We  find  the 
statement  in  one  of  the  letters  that  Macaulay  reckoned  on 
thirteen  volumes  of  his  history.  "  It  is  too  long,  and  overdone 
with  details,"  writes  Lewis ;  and  we  may  add,  that  if  Macau- 
lay  really  designed  to  bring  down  his  history  to  "a  period 
within  the  memory  of  men  now  living,"  as  he  stated,  the  rate 
of  progress  would  have  required  not  thirteen,  but  at  least  thir- 
ty volumes. 

Here  are  some  of  his  judgments  on  his  contemporaries. 
Of  Mr.  Disraeli  he  says :  "  Disraeli,  though  a  hard  hitter  in  at- 
tack, failed  as  an  exponent  of  a  measure  or  a  system  of  poli- 
cy." Of  Sir  Robert  Peel :  "  I  can  not  say  that  I  prized  his 
judgment  very  highly,  nor  do  I  think  that  as  a  guide  in  public 
affairs,  when  he  had  ceased  to  be  an  administrator,  he  was  of 
great  value.  He  did  not  see  far  before  him — he  was  not  ready 
in  applying  theory  to  practice — he  did  not  foresee  the  coming 
storm.  Peel's  death  will  exercise  a  great  influence  upon  the 
Peelite  body.  Graham  is  a  great  sufferer  by  the  change,  as 
he  had  constantly  stood  by  Peel  when  his  other  friends  went 
different  ways.  Upon  Gladstone  it  will  have  the  effect  of 


STA  TESMEN. 


277 


removing  a  weight  from  a  spring."  Here,  again,  is  perhaps 
the  most  damaging  sentence  that  has  ever  been  written  con- 
cerning the  modern  House  of  Commons,  with  which  we  may 
conclude  this  chapter.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  Sir 
George  did  not  draw  the  obvious  exception  of  men  actuated 
by  Christian  principle,  and  apparently  does  not  perceive  that 
Christian  principle  will  alone  save  a  popular  legislature  from 
the  evil  of  selfish  personal  objects. 

"  I  have  written  a  long  letter  to  Tocqueville,  to  explain  to 
him  that  the  present  state  of  politics  is  dangerous  to  nothing, 
except  the  morality  of  public  men.  I  have  shown  him  how 
this  danger  equally  besets  both  sides  of  the  House — how  pub- 
lic morality  is  equally  promoted  by  finding  excuses  for  sup- 
porting men  who  abandon  their  principles,  and  for  not  sup- 
porting men  who  act  upon  their  principles,  the  motive  in  both 
cases  being  purely  personal." 


TURNIXG-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 
On  Turning-Points  in  National  History. 

ANOTHER  aspect  of  turning-points  in  life  is  that  of  those  in 
the  history  of  nations.  This  must  be  glanced  at  briefly.  Na- 
tional life  and  individual  life  are  closely  connected.  The  in- 
dividual is  the  state  seen  through  a  magnifying  lens.  The 
state  is  the  individual  seen  through  the  diminishing  lens.  To 
use  the  Platonic  image,  what  we  read  in  the  one  case  in  small 
characters  we  read  in  the  other  case  in  large  characters. 

There  is  a  well-known  book  which  speaks  of  such  turning- 
points  as  the  "  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World,"  an  ar- 
bitrary enumeration  indeed,  but  still,  taking  the  uncertain  for 
a  certain  number,  indicating  the  tremendous  issues  dependent 
on  such  decisive  turning-points. 

For  instance,  what  a  moment  was  that  when  at  Marathon 
the  Medes  and  Persians,  with  their  cimeters  and  lunar  spears, 
broke  before  the  Athenians,  and  were  driven  back  into  the 
marshes  !  Then  Asia  precipitated  itself  upon  Europe,  and 
the  civilization  of  the  West  was  for  the  moment  trembling  in 
the  balance. 

What  a  moment  was  that,  nigh  twenty-three  centuries  later, 
when  the  English  had  turned  the  French  at  Waterloo,  and  the 
Duke  anxiously  waited  for  Blucher  that  he  might  reap  the 
fruits  of  victory  !  Again,  let  us  look  at  that  mighty  historical 
drama  which  has  been  unrolled  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
war.  Did  ever  high-handed  violence  meet  with  so  rapid  and 
overwhelming  a  retribution  ?  What  a  moment  was  that  when, 


NATIONAL  HISTORY. 


279 


in  the  Cabinet  of  the  Tuileries,  Napoleon  the  Third,  overper- 
suaded  by  his  wife  and  the  Due  de  Grammont,  and  deceived 
by  Lebceuf,  returned  to  the  council  and  declared  that  they 
must  ask  for  further  securities !  One  would  almost  have 
thought  that  a  thunderbolt  would  have  fallen  from  the  clear 
sky.  I  see  that  the  Count  de  la  Chapelle  says  very  frankly 
that  the  whole  nation  was  enthusiastically  bent  on  war,  and 
makes  them  all  accomplices  together.  In  a  historical  point 
of  view,  Napoleon  seemed  right,  but  in  the  moral  point  of 
view  he  was  wrong,  and  in  the  long  run  the  moral  element 
beats  the  political  element. 

Some  of  the  battles  discussed  might  be  open  to  criticism, 
on  the  ground  that  they  did  not  really  determine  a  nation's 
fate.  The  unprosperous  issue  of  the  Sicilian  expedition,  as 
Dr.  Arnold  points  out,  hindered  the  expansion  of  Greece  in 
the  Western  world,  and  reserved  for  Latin  institutions  the  su- 
premacy which  might  have  belonged  to  Hellenic  culture.  It 
was  in  the  East,  and  not  in  the  West,  that  the  destiny  of  the 
Greek  race  was  to  accomplish  itself.  The  Athenian  power 
survived  the  disasters  of  Syracuse,  but  it  fell  in  a  moment  of 
carelessness,  through  characteristic  Athenian  faults,  at  the 
fateful  Goat's  River.  Mr.  Hallam  says  of  a  certain  battle 
that  "  it  may  justly  be  reckoned  among  those  few  battles  of 
which  a  contrary  event  would  have  essentially  varied  the 
drama  of  the  world  in  all  its  subsequent  scenes." 

Lord  Dalling  (Sir  Henry  Bulwer),  in  his  recent  "  Life  of 
Lord  Palmerston,"  thinks  that  he  discerns  a  great  moment  in 
modern  politics.  This  was  when  Mr.  Huskisson  was  ejected 
by  the  Duke  of  Wellington  from  his  Cabinet.  This  led  to  the 
appointment  of  Mr.  Fitzgerald  ;  this  led  to  the  vacancy  for 
Clare:  this  led  to  the  election  of  Mr.  O'Connell ;  this  led  to 
the  agitation  for  the  Catholic  claims  ;  this  led  to  the  first  Re- 
form ;  this  led  to  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  and  the  second 


2go  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

Reform.  By  these  means  has  been  accomplished  a  silent  but 
thorough  revolution  in  England.  The  generalization,  how- 
ever, is  perhaps  a  little  too  rapid. 

The  discovery  of  America  is  referred  to  by  Humboldt  as  a 
"wonderful  concatenation  of  trivial  circumstances,"  which 
undeniably  exercised  an  influence  on  the  course  of  the  world's 
destiny.  "  These  circumstances  are,"  Washington  Irving  has 
justly  observed,  "that  if  Columbus  had  resisted  the  counsel 
of  Martin  Alonzo  Pinzon,  and  continued  to  steer  westward, 
he  would  have  entered  the  Gulf  Stream,  and  been  borne  to 
Florida,  and  from  thence  probably  to  Cape  Hatteras  and  Vir-  • 
ginia — a  circumstance  of  incalculable  importance,  since  it 
might  have  been  the  means  of  giving  to  the  United  States  of 
North  America  a  Catholic  Spanish  population  in  the  place  of 
the  Protestant  English  one  by  which  those  regions  were  sub- 
sequently colonized.  "  It  seems  to  me  like  an  inspiration," 
said  Pinzon  to  the  admiral,  "  that  my  heart  dictates  to  me 
that  we  ought  to  steer  in  a  different  direction."  It  was  on 
the  strength  of  this  circumstance  that,  in  the  celebrated  law- 
suit which  Pinzon  carried  on  against  the  heirs  of  Columbus 
between  1513  and  1515,  he  maintained  that  the  discovery  of 
America  was  alone  due  to  him.  This  inspiration,  Pinzon 
owed,  as  related  by  an  old  sailor  at  the  same  trial,  to  the  flight 
of  a  flock  of  parrots,  which  he  had  observed  in  the  evening  fly- 
ing toward  the  southwest,  in  order,  as  he  might  well  have  con- 
jectured, to  roost  on  trees  on  the  land.  Never  has  a  flight 
of  birds  been  attended  with  more  important  results" 

We  will  here  take  some  astute  observations  from  the  Sat- 
urday Review,  as  illustrating  a  somewhat  different  view  of  the 
question : 

"  If  something  had  happened  which  didn't  happen,  what  would 
have  happened  afterward  ?  is  a  kind  of  speculation  which  is  now 
much  in  fashion.  Of  course,  no  one  can  answer  positively  the 


NATIONAL  HISTORY.  281 

above  inquiry ;  yet,  in  looking  back  upon  the  course  of  his- 
tory, it  is  impossible  not  to  dwell  for  a  moment  upon  some  of  the 
most  important  crises,  and  to  remark  how  small  a  difference 
might  have  made  an  incalculable  change.  We  know  the  usual 
sayings  about  the  decisive  battles  of  the  world.  If  Themis- 
tocles  had  lost  the  battle  of  Salamis,  if  Asdrubal  had  won  the 
battle  of  the  Metaurus,  if  Charles  Martel  had  been  beaten  by 
the  Saracens,  would  not  the  subsequent  history  of  Europe  and 
the  world  have  been  altered,  and  a  great  many  fine  philosoph- 
ical theories  have  been  destroyed  before  their  birth  ?  It  is  im- 
possible here  to  discuss  so  large  a  question  as  the  frequency 
with  which  those  historical  crises  occur,  in  which  the  merest 
trifle  may  turn  the  balance,  or  to  inquire  whether  they  ever  oc- 
cur at  all.  But  we  may  notice  shortly  two  or  three  conditions 
of  the  argument  which  are  frequently  overlooked,  and  which 
make  most  of  these  discussions  eminently  unsatisfactory. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  believers  in  decisive  battles  very  sel- 
dom take  the  trouble  to  argue  the  real  difficulty  of  the  ques- 
tion. The  defeat  of  Napoleon  at  Leipzig,  or  perhaps  at  Wa- 
terloo, it  has  been  said,  changed  the  history  of  Europe.  It 
may  be  so  ;  but  the  fact  that  a  particular  battle  was  the  most 
crushing  or  the  final  blow  which  he  received  does  not  even 
tend  to  prove  that  a  different  result  would  have  been  equally 
decisive  the  other  way.  On  the  contrary,  a  victory  might  proba- 
bly have  been  the  next  worse  thing  to  a  defeat.  The  battles  in 
which  the  Saracens  or  the  Hungarians  received  the  final  check 
to  their  advance  are  in  the  same  way  reckoned  as  decisive 
of  victory.  But,  to  make  this  out,  we  should  have  to  prove  that 
which  is  at  first  opposed  to  all  probability — that,  in  the  event  of 
a  victory,  they  could  have  permanently  held  their  conquests ; 
and  afterward  that,  if  they  had  not  held  them,  they  would  not 
have  been  absorbed  by  the  conquered  population.  When  Ca- 
nute rebuked  his  courtiers,  he  happened  to  select  a  time  at 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


which  the  tide  was  rising.  If,  by  a  little  management,  they 
had  induced  him  to  give  the  order  just  as  the  tide  turned,  they 
might  perhaps  have  persuaded  him  that  his  order  was  the 
cause  of  the  change.  A  good  many  historical  heroes  seem  to 
have  been  Canutes,  who  issued  their  commands  precisely  at 
the  turn  of  the  tide ;  and  historical  writers  have  been  crying 
out  ever  since  that,  if  it  had  not  been  for  this  marvelous  Ca- 
nute, the  tide  would  have  swelled  until  the  whole  country  had 
been  engulfed.  The  analogy  is  of  course  imperfect ;  for  the 
historical  tide  is  really  affected  in  some  degree  by  the  hero 
who  opposes  its  progress  at  the  proper  moment,  only  he  has  a 
wonderful  advantage  if  he  happens  to  strike  at  the  fortunate 
epoch. 

"  The  absurdity  of  a  series  of '  ifs'  has  also  been  thus  shown. 
'  If  this  did  not  happen,  then  something  else  must  have  hap- 
pened, and  the  whole  course  of  subsequent  events  must  have 
been  altered.'  It  is  one  of  those  far-fetched  explanations 
which  we  can  produce  at  will  to  account  for  any  phenomenon. 
We  might  say,  for  instance,  that  the  prophet  Jonah  was  the  cause 
of  American  slavery.  If  he  had  not  preached,  Nineveh  would 
not  have  repented  ;  if  Nineveh  had  not  repented,  it  would  have 
been  overthrown.  Who  knows  the  consequences  ?  The  whole 
course  of  empire  would  have  been  changed,  and  America 
might  still  be  a  forest. 

"  Mr.  Phillimore,  in  his  '  History  of  England  in  the  Reign 
of  George  III.,'  describes  the  difficulty  of  writing  modern  his- 
tory, and  laments  that  in  modern  times  we  have  no  Herodotus 
nor  Thucydides,  no  Livy  nor  Tacitus.  He  says  that  if  these 
Greek  and  Roman  historians  lived  in  our  day — if  they  saw 
this,  and  if  they  saw  that — if  they  were  acquainted  with  In- 
dia— if  they  were  acquainted  with  America — and  if  they 
knew  a  great  number  of  other  things  besides — the  result,  the 
grand  result,  the  astonishing  result  would  be  that  they  would 


NATIONAL   HISTORY. 


283 


have  known  more  than  they  knew,  and  would  have  told  us 
more. 

"In  Whitaker's  'Vindication  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,' that 
curious  writer  thus  speculates  in  the  true  spirit  of  this  paper. 
When  dependence  was  made  on  Elizabeth's  dying  without  is- 
sue, the  Countess  of  Shrewsbury  had  her  son  purposely  re- 
siding in  London,  with  two  good  and  able  horses  continually 
ready,  to  give  the  earliest  intelligence  of  the  sick  Elizabeth's 
death  to  the  imprisoned  Mary.  On  this  the  historian  ob- 
serves, '  And  had  this  not  improbable  event  actually  taken 
place,  what  a  different  aspect  would  our  history  have  assumed 
from  what  it  wears  at  present!  Mary  would  have  been  car- 
ried from  a  prison  to  a  throne.  Her  wise  conduct  in  prison 
would  have  been  applauded  by  all.  From  Tutbury,  from 
Sheffield,  from  Chatsworth,  she  would  have  been  said  to  have 
touched  with  a  gentle  and  masterly  hand  the  springs  that  act- 
uated all  the  nation,  against  the  death  of  her  tyrannical  cous- 
in,' etc.  So  ductile  is  history  in  the  hands  of  man  !  And  so 
peculiarly  does  it  bend  to  the  force  of  success,  and  warp  with 
the  warmth  of  prosperity  ! 

" '  If  Mary  had  lived  a  little  longer,  or  Elizabeth  died  sooner,' 
says  Mr.  Mill,  '  the  Reformation  would  have  been  crushed  in 
England.'  People  who  believe  in  a  steady  development  of 
human  thought  are  naturally  unwilling  to  allow  that  the  spread 
of  new  ideas  may  be  arrested  or  made  possible  by  the  acci- 
dent of  a  single  woman's  life ;  for,  on  the  same  principles,  we 
can  have  no  certainty  that  in  a  few  years  hence  we  may  not 
all  be  Roman  Catholics  or  Mormons  or  followers  of  Comte. 

"  It  is  always  a  question  among  military  writers  how  far 
the  pause  of  Hannibal  was  compulsory — a  question  not  likely 
to  be  solved  unless  Pompeii  yields  us  further  literary  treas- 
ures. As  far  as  one  can  decide,  at  such  a  distance  of  time 
and  of  scene,  it  seems  all  but  certain  that  the  rapid  advance 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


of  Hannibal  on  Rome  after  the  battle  of  Cannae,  that  of  Henry 
of  Navarre  on  Paris  after  the  battle  of  Ivry,  or  that  of  Charles 
Stuart  on  London  after  penetrating  as  far  as  Derby,  would  have 
changed  the  course  of  human  history." 

Without  a  religious  reference,  either  history  or  science  be- 
comes dreary  or  unintelligible.  Take  history.  From  a  mere- 
ly secular  point  of  view  it  is  a  study  that  is  unutterably  sad 
and  dreary.  It  is  like  the  bitter  record  of  the  prophet — lam- 
entation, mourning,  and  woe.  That  nation  is  happy  that  has 
not  a  history,  for  history  is  the  record  of  the  tragedy  and 
crimes  of  a  nation's  life.  It  creeps  on  from  point  to  point  of 
the  same  monotony  of  events,  from  siege  to  siege,  from  battle 
to  battle,  from  treaty  to  treaty.  It  is  the  perpetual  story  of 
the  monuments  of  Nineveh,  where  we  see  the  long  lines  of 
captives  led  away  into  exile.  It  is  the  ever-renewed  legend 
of  Judcea  Capta,  of  the  medal  that  shows  the  discrowned  one 
beneath  the  palm-tree.  It  is  the  imagery  of  the  arch  whereon 
is  depicted  lamentation,  mourning  and  woe.  But  when  we 
bring  the  divine  life  into  such  things  the  case  altogether  al- 
ters. Those  generations  of  the  past  are  the  strata  by  which 
we  attain  to  a  higher  level.  We  discern  that  "through  the 
ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs."  God  has  been  guiding  the 
human  race  through  the  tangled  course  of  its  destinies.  It  is 
very  striking  to  observe  how  so  remarkable  a  writer  as  Mr. 
Wallace,  who,  indeed,  elaborated  Darwinism  before  Darwin, 
has  broken  away  from  his  own  theory  of  natural  selection  to 
admit  that  a  Providence  has  directed  the  process :  "  A  supe- 
rior intelligence  has  guided  the  development  of  man  in  a  defi- 
nite direction  and  for  a  special  purpose,  just  as  man  guides 
the  development  of  many  animal  and  vegetable  forms."  What 
is  true  of  nature  is  also  true  of  history.  The  great  idea  of  the 
education  of  the  world,  suggested  by  Pascal,  and  elaborated 
by  Bishop  Temple,  is  in  the  main  a  true  one.  The  world,  in 


.NATIONAL  HISTORY.  285 

its  corporate  existence,  is  carried  on  in  the  course  of  improve- 
ment, and  each  generation  starts  from  the  vantage-ground  of 
that  which  has  been  gained  by  its  ancestry.  Of  the  lives  that 
momentarily  fall,  like  rain-drops  into  the  earth,  none  are  lost 
or  wasted.  The  broken  purposes  that  fail  on  earth  are  car- 
ried out  hereafter,  and  the  worn,  shattered  banner  of  human- 
ity, torn  and  drooping  here,  is  planted  again  hereafter  upon  a 
happier  shore. 

We  may  take  some  instances  of  historical  parallels  suggest- 
ed by  the  late  war.  The  first  of  the  philosophical  historians 
noted  the  tendency  of  history  to  repeat  itself  in  cycles.  There 
are  several  periods  of  military  history  which  present  strong 
points  of  resemblance  to  the  Prussian  invasion  of  France. 
These  are  especially  the  invasion  of  1793-4,  and  the  invasion 
of  1814.  At  one  point  in  the  invasion  of  1794,  things  seemed 
more  hopeless  for  France  than  they  did  so  lately  after  all  the 
disastrous  fighting  between  Metz  and  Verdun.  In  this  cam- 
paign, the  invaders,  though  at  first  prosperous,  could  not  avail 
themselves  of  their  prosperity  through  their  want  of  vigor  and 
of  unity.  The  events  of  history  give  us  an  extraordinary  num- 
ber of  duplicates.  On  October  13, 1793,  the  Germans  attacked 
the  lines  of  Wissembourg,  and  took  possession  of  the  place. 
The  French  general  was  obliged  to  fall  back  upon  Haguenau, 
and  so  make  a  considerable  sacrifice  of  territory.  The  Ger- 
mans then,  as  lately,  possessed  an  extraordinary  preponder- 
ance of  troops  and  resources,  and  the  French  were  in  the 
worst  possible  plight  at  the  time.  But  in  the  earlier  wars 
they  were  tardy,  irresolute,  inactive,  and  committing  an  ex- 
traordinary number  of  fatuous  blunders.  At  one  period  of 
the  campaign  the  Allies  were  within  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
of  Paris.  The  French  army  was  in  deep  dejection,  the  capi- 
tal in  dismay,  and  the  republican  authorities  were  betaking 
themselves  to  flight.  But  the  Germans  never  ventured  to 


286  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

march  upon  Paris,  and  the  great  opportunity  of  concluding 
the  war  was  lost.  If  they  had  advanced,  England  would  prob- 
ably have  been  saved  six  hundred  millions  of  public  debt. 
But  the  Committee  of  Public  Salvation,  however  remorseless- 
ly cruel  with  their  myriad  assassinations,  were  energetic  and 
patriotic  men,  and  did  not  despair  of  the  state.  Even  the  vile 
Barere  used  thrilling  language  to  arouse  the  defenders  :  "Lib- 
erty has  become  the  creditor  of  every  citizen;  some  owe  it 
their  industry ;  others  their  fortune ;  some  their  counsels ; 
other  their  arms ;  all  their  lives.  The  Republic  is  a  besieged 
city;  all  its  territory  must  become  a  vast  camp."  Nothing 
illustrates  the  difference  between  the  two  periods  as  the  con 
duct  of  the  Germans  at  Wissembourg  in  1793,  and  their  con- 
duct at  Wissembourg  and  Woerth  in  1870.  The  original 
achievement  of  1793  was  very  great,  but  a  historian  of  the 
Convention  says,  "  Such  was  the  tardiness  of  the  Allies  that 
the  French  lost  only  one  thousand  men  in  this  general  rout, 
which,  if  duly  improved,  might  have  occasioned  the  loss  of 
their  whole  army.  This  important  success,  which  once  more 
opened  the  territory  of  the  Republic  to  a  victorious  enemy, 
led  to  no  results."  But  in  this  age  men  do  not  linger,  but 
strike  at  the  heart,  on  the  maxim  frappez  vite  et  frappcz  forte. 
Never  before  or  after  has  France  been  in  a  worse  state  than 
when  she  hurled  back  the  invasion  of  1794. 

While  the  Allies  were  languid,  France  was  aroused.  A  levy 
of  1,200,000  men  was  ordered,  and  in  an  incredibly  short  time 
were  fairly  disciplined.  Above  all,  France  was  about  to  yield 
an  extraordinary  crop  of  military  genius.  There  was  one 
young  officer  of  engineers,  the  founder  of  an  empire,  who  was 
then  saving  Toulon  from  the  British  invader.  There  were 
more  than  a  dozen  men  in  the  lowest  orders  of  life  who  might 
be  said  to  be  carrying  in  their  empty  knapsacks  a  field-mar- 
shal's baton.  For  the  immediate  emergency  there  was  the 


NATIONAL  HISTORY.  287 

great  Carnot,  the  head  of  the  military  department.    "  Carnot," 
said  Napoleon,  "  has  organized  victory."     He  was  the  Von 
Moltke  of  the  campaign  of  1793-4,  but  on  the  side  of  the  de- 
fense and  not  on  the  side  of  the  attack.     Carnot  held  the 
view  which  condemns  the  cold  shade  of  the  aristocracy,  as 
Sir  William  Napier  said,  under  which  our  soldiers  fight.    "  He 
deemed  it  impossible  that  an  army  commanded  by  officers 
chosen  exclusively  from  a  limited  class  of  society  could  long 
maintain  a  contest  with  one  led  by  those  chosen  with  discern- 
ment from  inferior  ranks."     Carnot,  like  Jomini,  wrote  several 
treatises  on  scientific  warfare,  the  one  best  known  being  that 
in  opposition  to  the  views  of  that  great  military  genius,  Vau- 
ban.     It  relates  to  the  siege  question.     It  was  the  assertion 
of  Vauban  that  the  means  of  defense  in  sieges  were  inferior 
to  those  of  attack,  and  that  the  hour  of  the  fall  of  every  for- 
tress might  be  calculated  with  mathematical  certainty.     Car- 
not, on  the  other  hand,  maintained  that  the  means  of  defense 
in  fortified  towns  may  be  made  equal  or  superior  to  those  of 
attack.     His  greatest  improvement  was  the  substitution  of 
earthworks  for  masonry.    While  Carnot  was  developing  a  mil- 
itary genius  almost  possessing  his  mathematical  accuracy,  the 
Allies  obstinately  preserved  the  old  "  system  of  positions." 
The  French  were  enabled  to  stem  the  tide  of  invasion  and 
then  roll  back  the  waves  upon  their  foes.     The  Allies  were 
delayed  by  fortresses,  which  they  were  not  content  to  "  mask," 
but  stayed  to  besiege,  and  this  gave  France  time  to  complete 
her  immense  armaments  which  almost  realized  her  dream  of 
xmiversal  empire.     It  was  a  saying  of  the  Archduke  Charles, 
that  the  military  superiority  of  France  arises  from  the  chain 
of  fortresses  with  which  it  is  surrounded,  whereby  it  is  enabled, 
with  equal  facility,  to  throw  delays  in  the  way  of  an  invasion 
of  its  own,  and  to  find  a  solid  base  for  an  irruption  into  its 
neighbor's  territories ;  and  that  the  want  of  such  a  barrier  on 


288  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine  is  the  principal  defect  in  the  sys- 
tem of  German  defense.  By  the  recent  war  these  conditions 
have  been  almost  reversed.  The  German  defenses  had  been 
organized,  and  the  Germans  have  been  able  to  pierce  through 
the  chain  of  fortresses  which  protected  the  imperial  frontiers 
of  France,  and  have  since  appropriated  them. 

We  now  turn  to  the  invasion  of  1814,  which,  in  a  still  great- 
er degree  than  1794-5,  abounds  with  historical  parallels. 
France  had  been  drained  of  men  and  arms  by  the  fatal  ex- 
pedition to  Russia,  by  the  battle  of  Dresden,  which  was  the 
last  pitched  battle  which  Napoleon  won,  and  that  awful  field 
of  Leipzig,  where  the  charm  of  his  invincibility  was  again 
rudely  broken,  and  Germany,  in  resurrection  from  his  despot- 
ism, forever  broke  off  his  yoke.  All  Europe  was  now  in  arms 
against  France,  and  then,  even  more  than  at  the  present  time, 
there  were  political  elements  hardly  less  destructive  to  empire 
and  dynasty  at  work  in  Paris.  The  First  Napoleon  rejoiced 
to  leave  Paris  with  its  festering  passions,  to  make  himself 
once  more  at  home  with  his  soldiers.  The  Allies,  despite 
their  enormous  preponderance  of  forces,  would  willingly  shrink 
from  meeting  Napoleon  himself.  Even  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton thought  his  presence  substantially  equal  to  an  addition  of 
forty  thousand  men  to  the  amount  of  an  army.  Paris  had 
then  none  of  those  fortifications  with  which  M.  Thiers  has 
since  surrounded  her.  There  was  only  an  octroi,  which  the 
emperor  directed  should  be  strengthened  with  palisades  and 
artillery.  When,  on  January  25, 1814,  Napoleon  reached  Cha- 
lons, to  withstand  the  flood  of  invasion,  his  generals  hoped 
that  he  was  being  followed  by  supports  of  troops.  He  coolly 
told  them  "  No,"  and  proceeded  to  encourage  them  by  unfold- 
ing the  boldness  and  profundity  of  his  plans.  The  campaign 
which  he  then  fought  is  full  of  remarkable  instances  of  a  mil- 
itary genius  which  never  shone  brighter,  but  he  could  not 


NATIONAL   HISTORY,  289 

achieve  impossibilities.  The  enormous  disciplined  masses 
passing  into  France  could  not  fail  to  overwhelm  him  eventu- 
ally. Three  great  armies  were  prepared  to  act  against  him, 
with  enormous  reserves  behind — in  all  more  than  a  million 
of  men.  The  Allies  hardly  ventured  on  any  movement  in 
the  presence  of  Napoleon  except  in  overwhelming  masses. 
Though  he  suffered  a  defeat  from  Blucher  through  force  of 
numbers,  he  had  still  such  hope  in  his  destiny  that  he  even 
withdrew  from  Caulaincourt  his  carte  blanche  of  making  peace. 
He  thought  he  could  give  his  enemy  on  the  wide  plains  of 
Champagne  the  same  stunning  blows  which  he  had  so  often 
given  them  on  the  plains  of  Italy.  To  affect  the  political  con- 
dition of  Paris,  he  resorted,  as  his  manner  was,  to  illimitable 
lying,  in  which  he  was  certainly  not  without  imitators  at  the 
last  great  crisis.  He  held  a  review,  and  gave  in  the  Moniteur 
next  morning  the  numbers  five  times  the  amount  of  the  truth. 
When  Blucher  won  the  battle  of  La  Rothiere,  the  rough  Prus- 
sian eagerly  struck  off  with  his  knife  the  necks  of  champagne 
bottles,  and  all  with  him  vehemently  drank  the  toast  "  Nach 
Paris"  (to  Paris).  Nappleon  fell  back  toward  the  interior: 
his  plan  was  to  concentrate  his  forces.  By  forced  marches 
and  incredible  impetuosity  he  first  threw  himself  on  one  army 
and  then  on  another  of  the  invaders,  winning  victory  after  vic- 
tory. He  thus  won  the  brilliant  fields  of  Montmirail,  Nangis, 
and  Montereau.  On  this  last  he  gaily  said  :  "  Don't  fear,  my 
friends.  The  bullet  is  not  cast  that  will  kill  me."  Blucher 
found  that  it  was  not  so  easy,  after  all,  to  get  to  Paris.  The 
Allies  even  offered  an  armistice,  and  were  prepared  for  peace 
on  the  conditions  which  Caulaincourt  had  proposed  in  his 
name.  But  Napoleon  had  not  as  a  politician  the  foresight 
which  he  possessed  as  a  general.  He  did  not  perceive  that 
his  very  victories  were  those  of  the  kind  which  made  King 
Pyrrhus  exclaim,  "One  more  such  victory,  and  I  am  undone." 

N 


290 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


His  triumphs  would  not  now  produce  final  effects.  The  re- 
sistless might  of  Europe  was  setting  in  upon  him,  and  he  could 
not  achieve  miracles.  It  was  in  vain  he  sent  to  Paris  artil- 
lery, flags,  and  thousands  of  prisoners.  The  end  must  come. 
Still  that  marvelous  campaign  will  always  be  studied,  both 
in  the  popular  pages  of  Thiers  and  Alison,  and  also  in  works 
written  for  military  students.  Step  by  step  we  are  reminded 
of  the  recent  war.  On  advancing  toward  the  capital  of  France 
en  the  northeast  or  by  the  east,  we  arrive  at  the  borders  of  a 
basin,  of  which  Paris  is  the  centre,  and  toward  which  the 
Marne  and  the  Seine  flow,  forming  an  angle,  whose  sides  unite 
at  the  common  apex,  Paris.  Between  the  line  of  the  Marne 
and  Seine  is  the  intermediate  line  of  the  Aube.  It  was  be- 
tween those  lines  that  Napoleon  showed  his  genius  as  a  strate- 
gist and  a  general.  The  Allies  justly  considered  that  a  march 
from  the  Vosges  to  Paris  was  the  hardest  part  of  the  war.  In 
the  midst  of  his  successes  he  might  repeatedly  have  made 
peace  on  honorable  terms,  but  he  was  deluded  by  his  own 
hopes  and  wishes,  and  the  victories  which  he  won.  He  failed, 
also,  to  appreciate  the  fickleness  of  the  capital  and  the  reality 
of  the  Bourbon  reaction.  Success  forsook  him,  when  he  could 
least  spare  a  reverse,  at  Laon  ;  but,  though  he  fell  back,  in  re- 
treat he  succeeded  in  retaking  Rheims,  the  last  city  he  ever 
took,  and  where  he  held  his  last  review.  He  now  felt  bitterly 
his  enormous  error  in  leaving  vast  forces  in  frontier  fortresses 
while  he  wanted  troops  so  sorely  to  shield  the  very  heart  of 
the  empire.  There  is  nothing  more  glorious  in  French  annals 
than  that  battle  of  Arcis-sur-Aube,  where  twenty  thousand 
French  opposed  during  a  whole  day  ninety  thousand  Russians 
and  Austrians — the  last  battle  which  he  fought  in  this  cam- 
paign. But  he  wanted  more  men.  He  determined  to  ad- 
vance from  the  Aube  to  the  Marne,  in  the  direction  of  Metz, 
where  he  might  be  joined  by  the  garrisons  of  Metz,  Luxem- 


NATIONAL   HISTORY. 


291 


burg,  Thionville,  Verdun,  and  Strasburg.  He  accordingly 
went  back  so  far  as  St.  Dizier,  where  he  halted.  It  was  Count 
Pozzo  di  Borgo  who  persuaded  the  Emperor  Alexander  that 
it  was  best  for  him  to  advance  on  Paris,  even  at  the  risk  of 
Napoleon  attacking  him  in  the  rear  with  an  army  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand  men.  He  calculated  on  the  political  effects 
of  a  march  on  Paris.  By  his  march  to  the  frontier,  Napoleon, 
in  the  failure  of  his  calculations,  as  happened  in  the  event, 
was  as  much  isolating  himself  as  if  he  had  been  shut  up  like 
Bazaine  in  Metz. 

In  the  March  of  1814  the  one  subject  of  conversation  at 
Paris  was  that  of  the  defenses  of  the  capital  against  the  in- 
vader. Napoleon  had  made  two  great  mistakes — Paris  was 
unprovided  with  fortifications ;  Paris  was  unprovided  with 
muskets.  Thus  it  is  that  M.Thiers  speaks:  "An  enemy  ad- 
vancing along  the  right  bank  of  the  Seine  must  of  necessity 
encounter  the  half-circle  of  heights  that  surrounds  Paris  from 
Vincennes  to  Passy,  and  which  incloses  the  most  populous  and 
richest  part  of  the  city.  From  the  confluence  of  the  Marne  and 
the  Seine,  near  Charenton,  to  Passy  and  Auteuil,  Paris  is  encir- 
cled by  a  chain  of  heights,  sometimes  extending  en  plateau,  as  at 
Romainville,  sometimes  saillant,  as  at  Montmartre,  and  these 
offered  a  most  valuable  means  of  resistance,  even  before  a 
patriot  king  had  covered  these  positions  with  impregnable 
fortifications  !"  So  far  M.  Thiers.  But  we  must  ask  :  What 
became  of  the  patriot  king  ?  what  became  of  the  impregnable 
fortifications?  The  small  army,  indeed,  fought  bravely  at 
Montmartre  and  Belleville  (M.  Thiers's  "  Battle  of  Paris"), 
but  as  soon  as  the  first  bomb  had  fallen  in  the  city  it  capitu- 
lated. There  is  no  scene  more  striking  in  history  than  when 
the  news  of  this  great  calamity  came  to  Napoleon.  He  had 
a  powerful  army,  he  could  have  saved  Paris  if  she  had  held 
out,  he  might  yet  reappear  there  and  make  the  capital  the 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


tomb  of  the  invaders.  But  the  political  situation  was  too 
strong  for  him ;  his  own  marshals  put  extreme  pressure  upon 
him,  and  said  the  army  had  no  more  blood  to  spill;  and  he 
himself  admitted  that  "abdication  was  the  idea  of  the  hour." 
Even  while  signing  the  act  of  abdication  he  declared  he  could 
still  beat  them.  One  consolation,  such  as  it  was,  he  had: 
"  England  has  done  me  much  harm,  undoubtedly  ;  but  I  have 
left  a  poisoned  arrow  in  her  side.  It  is  I  who  augmented  that 
national  debt  that  will  press  on  future  generations,  and  will 
become  an  unceasingly  oppressive  if  not  overwhelming  burden 
to  her."  We  think  that  it  was  on  the  night  of  the  very  day 
when  he  spoke  of  poisoning  England  that  the  emperor  took 
poison  himself,  but  ineffectually.  He  exclaimed  :  "  How  dif- 
ficult death  is  here,  and  how  easy  on  the  field  of  battle !  Ah ! 
why  did  I  not  die  at  Arcis-sur-Aube  ?" 

I  do  not  know  what  may  be  my  reader's  private  opinion  of 
the  Great  Duke  of  Marlborough.  Some  of  them  may  agree 
with  Sir  Archibald  Alison  in  looking  upon  him  as  the  great 
hero ;  others,  with  Lord  Macaulay,  in  regarding  him  as  the 
great  villain  of  history.  But  all  agree  in  regarding  him  as  a 
great  man,  who  humbled  the  pride  of  France,  who  raised  the 
fame  of  England,  and  who  was  a  mighty  instrument  in  bring- 
ing about  great  events.  God  "  maketh  even  the  wrath  of  man 
to  praise  him;"  and  though  there  may  have  been  little  to 
please  him  in  Marlborough's  life,  yet  that  life  might  be  none 
the  less  directed  by  his  providence.  In  thinking  over  the  ear- 
lier career  of  the  great  duke,  some  sets  of  circumstances  ap- 
pear to  be  so  providential  that,  as  illustrations  of  "  the  hand 
of  God  in  history,"  I  think  it  well  to  put  them  down. 

About  the  year  1670 — that  may  be  taken  as  a  convenient 
date  for  the  period — the  power  of  France  overshadowed  all 
Christendom.  Louis  XIV.,  a  selfish,  cruel,  bigoted  voluptua- 


NATIONAL   HISTORY. 


293 


ry,  was  the  absolute  tyrant  of  the  country.  His  neighbors 
dreaded  his  encroachments,  and  in  the  open  field  had  found 
reason  to  tremble  at  his  power.  One  country  alone  might 
have  entered  the  lists  against  France,  either  as  a  single  oppo- 
nent or  as  the  soul  of  an  alliance.  This  was  England — En- 
gland, that  in  old  historic  wars  had  so  often  overthrown  the 
chivalry  of  France,  and,  only  twelve  years  before,  under  the 
lion-hearted  Protector,  had  revived  the  fame  of  her  ancient 
prowess.  But  a  weak,  sinful,  guilty  man,  Charles  II.,  was  then 
king  of  England,  and  found  in  his  brother  of  France  a  con- 
genial spirit.  He  joined  with  Louis  in  a  wicked  conspiracy 
against  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  the  world.  A  secret 
treaty,  of  a  character  truly  infamous,  was  concluded  in  1670, 
at  Dover,  by  which,  practically,  Charles  sold  England  into 'the 
hands  of  the  king  of  France.  For  a  stipulated  sum  of  money 
he  really  became  the  vassal  of  Louis.  Nor  was  this  all.  The 
king  of  France  was  then  engaged  in  a  war  against  the  Prot- 
estant Dutch,  whom  he  hated  with  peculiar  rancor.  England, 
at  the  time  of  the  great  Queen  Elizabeth,  had  been  of  the 
most  essential  assistance  to  Holland,  in  establishing  and  fos- 
tering her  liberties  and  her  religion.  Charles  was  now  pre- 
pared to  join  with  Louis  in  crushing  both.  He  covenanted 
to  send  him  some  troops  to  assist  in  the  subjugation  of  Hol- 
land. 

There  was  in  those  days  at  the  court  of  London  a  soldier 
of  fortune  named  Churchill.  He  was  descended  of  a  good 
stock — on  his  mother's  side  from  the  renowned  sea-captain 
Drake.  He  was  a  man  of  great  ability,  of  great  daring,  of 
surpassing  personal  beauty.  He  had  gone  out  some  time  be- 
fore, under  the  notorious  Colonel  Kirke,  to  the  African  fortress 
of  Tangier,  a  place  which  had  lately  come  into  the  possession 
of  the  English  through  the  king's  marriage  with  Catherine  of 
Braganza.  He  was  now  in  London,  and,  as  we  should  say  in 


294 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


modern  parlance,  quite  the  rage.  He  stole  away  the  hearts 
of  all  the  court  beauties.  Among  the  rest,  the  king's  chief 
favorite,  the  Countess  of  Castlemain,  was  in  love  with  him, 
and  made  him  the  present  of  a  little  fortune.  King  Charles 
was  violently  jealous  of  his  good-looking  subject,  as  far  as  his 
easy,  languid  nature  was  susceptible  of  violent  jealousy.  He 
thought  it  best  to  get  rid  of  Churchill  by  giving  him  a  com- 
pany of  horse  to  serve  in  the  French  army  against  Holland. 

Churchill  was  very  popular  among  the  French.  He  went 
by  the  name  of  "the  handsome  Englishman."  The  war  went 
disastrously  for  the  Dutch,  and  that  brave,  industrious  people 
was  reduced  to  the  utmost  despair.  Churchill  distinguished 
himself  greatly — so  greatly,  indeed,  that  King  Louis  XIV. 
publicly  thanked  him  at  the  head  of  his  army,  and  promised 
to  use  his  influence  to  procure  him  promotion.  According  to 
all  human  calculation,  France  was  now,  and  was  long  likely 
to  be,  at  the  head  of  the  world.  This  alliance  with  the  king 
of  England,  this  presence  of  the  English  troops  on  the  French 
side,  were  not  the  least  proofs  of  it.  And  yet  these  very  facts 
were  now  developing  circumstances  which  hereafter  should  tell 
with  deadly  effect  against  the  French.  The  English  army, 
from  the  insularity  of  their  country,  had  not  had  much  ex- 
perience in  general  warfare ;  but  they  were  now  thoroughly 
drilled  in  the  Continental  system.  Churchill  obtained  the 
best  military  education  in  the  world.  He  learned  fortification 
through  the  famous  engineer  Vauban,  and  the  science  of  war 
from  those  most  famous  generals,  Condd  and  Turenne :  arts 
of  siege  and  arts  of  warfare  which  he  afterward  turned  against 
his  teachers  on  many  memorable  occasions. 

Now  is  not  all  this  very  remarkable,  say  providential,  that  a 
worthless  king,  for  the  sake  of  a  worthless  minion,  should  send 
the  most  soldierly  genius  in  England  to  learn  the  dread  trade 
of  war  in  the  best  military  school  in  the  world  ?  that  France. 


NATIONAL  HISTORY. 


295 


who  in  the  insolence  of  success  employed  these  English  sol- 
diers, should  thus  be  training  an  army  which  should  hereafter 
reduce  her  to  the  verge  of  ruin  and  despair?  that  Marlborough 
should  learn  from  the  marshals  of  France  those  lessons  which 
enabled  him  afterward  to  bring  them  to  defeat  and  disgrace? 
that  King  Louis  of  France  should  himself  personally  obtain 
the  promotion  of  the  man  who  proved  to  be  his  deadliest  ene- 
my, and  put  him  on  the  high  road  to  great  military  rank,  which 
was  eventually  the  means  of  covering  his  own  gray  hairs  with 
well-merited  shame  and  disappointment? 

Let  us  now  pass  over  a  term  of  thirty  years.  We  come  to 
the  scene  of  Marlborough's  most  famous  triumphs,  and  an  oc- 
casion of  a  great  peril  and  deliverance.  That  dashing  Captain 
Churchill  has  become  the  great  Earl  of  Marlborough.  On 
various  occasions,  in  various  critical  campaigns,  he  has  proved 
his  great  genius.  This  he  has  done  in  the  civil  wars  of  En- 
gland, and  in  the  Low  Countries.  The  Grand  Alliance  has 
now  been  formed,  to  curb  the  towering  ambition  of  Louis. 
Marlborough  is  the  generalissimo  of  the  army.  The  cam- 
paign of  the  first  year  of  the  war  has  just  been  fought ;  it  was 
a  year  unmarked  by  any  such  victory  as  those  which  afterward 
ensued  —  Blenheim,  Ramillies,  Oudenarde,  Malplaquet  —  but, 
nevertheless,  Marlborough's  success  had  been  brilliant;  he 
had  taken  several  important  places ;  especially,  he  had  cap- 
tured the  city  of  Lie'ge.  The  campaign  was  now  over ;  all 
hostilities  were  suspended  by  the  winter.  The  army  had 
gone  into  winter  quarters. 

Marlborough  set  out  from  Flanders  to  proceed  to  the 
Hague.  Some  Dutch  commissioners  were  in  his  company. 
He  resolved  to  do  part  of  his  journey  by  water,  and  embark- 
ed on  the  Meuse.  The  Meuse  is  an  affluent  of  the  Rhine, 
and  retains  many  of  the  beauties  of  the  parent  stream.  Al- 
though the  livery  of  winter  was  on  land  and  stream,  the  river 


296  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

was  still  navigable,  and  its  banks  presented  much  of  that  emi- 
nently pleasing  scenery  which  at  the  present  day  delights 
multitudes  of  tourists.  The  boat  preserved  an  easy,  prosper- 
ous course.  Every  thing  around  was  as  peaceful  as  if  there 
was  a  general  pacification,  instead  of  universal  war.  The 
many-sided  Marlborough  must  have  enjoyed  this  peaceful 
change.  Perhaps  he  anticipated  the  wide  field  now  open  for 
his  genius  and  ambition,  exulting  in  the  success  which  he  had 
just  attained,  and  looking  forward  to  plans  of  future  victory. 

If  such  were  his  meditations,  they  were  destined  to  be  rude- 
ly interrupted.  A  band  of  marauding  Frenchmen,  in  the  love 
of  adventure  or  desire  of  plunder,  were  just  at  this  time  mak- 
ing a  daring  incursion  on  the  banks  of  the  Meuse.  They  saw 
the  boat,  and  from  its  size  and  equipment  judged  that  it  might 
be  a  prize  of  unusual  value.  Passengers  and  boatmen  in- 
cluded, the  whole  crew  were  quite  incapable  of  competing 
with  the  superior  number  of  Frenchmen.  The  French  soon 
perceived  and  used  their  opportunity;  the  crew  were  sur- 
rounded, the  boat  seized,  and  all  were  made  prisoners. 

Yes,  there  was  no  doubt  at  all  about  the  humiliating  fact ; 
the  great  Earl  of  Marlborough,  the  generalissimo  of  the  allied 
armies,  was  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  the  French.  Not  at 
the  close  of  some  late-contested  field,  in  honorable  defeat  by 
the  fair,  open  foe,  was  the  great  commander  taken  captive,  but 
thus  ingloriously  by  a  band  of  mere  marauders.  It  was  not 
for  him  to  wield  the  thunderbolts  of  war.  Immured  in  some 
strong  fortress,  he  would  perhaps  drag  on  his  days  as  a  dis- 
honored prisoner,  while  others  fought  the  campaigns  and  won 
the  battles  of  the  day. 

The  French  dealt  with  their  prize  in  sharp,  business-like 
fashion ;  they  overhauled  the  boat  to  look  for  any  valuables 
it  might  contain.  To  their  extreme  satisfaction  the  search 
proved  exceedingly,  abundantly  productive.  Valuable  plate, 


NATIONAL   HISTORY. 


297 


rich  furs  and  coverings,  a  round  sum  of  money,  handsome 
wearing  apparel  formed  their  lucky  booty.  They  then  turned 
round  to  investigate  their  prisoners ;  it  was  just  possible  that 
they  might  be  persons  of  rank,  very  well  worth  the  capturing. 
If  they  had  only  known  it,  there  was  one  prisoner  there  worth 
that  boatful  of  gold,  yea,  that  boatful  of  gold  told  ten  times 
over  •  ay,  and  if  the  king  of  France  with  prescient  eye  could 
have  read  the  future,  he  would  have  promoted  the  captain  of 
the  band  to  the  third  place  in  the  kingdom  if  he  had  brought 
Marlborough  as  a  prisoner  to  Versailles.  If  this  had  only 
been  the  case,  the  fate  of  the  war  and  the  history  of  Europe 
might  have  been  different. 

The  Dutchmen  were  overhauled — solid,  robust,  substantial 
men.  Not  much  was  to  be  made  out  of  them.  The  French- 
men must  have  perceived  that  Marlborough  was  treated  with 
high  consideration,  but  his  real  rank  did  not  transpire.  Even 
the  intrepid  spirit  of  Marlborough  must  have  quailed  in  this 
moment  of  consternation  and  danger.  Just  at  this  crisis  his 
servant  noiselessly  came  behind  him,  and  slipped  a  piece  of 
paper  into  his  hand. 

With  his  usual  presence  of  mind,  Marlborough  did  nothing 
to  betray  the  incident ;  but  he  found  an  opportunity  to  take  a 
quick  glance  at  the  paper. 

It  was  an  old  passport — a  passport  which  had  been  made 
many  years  ago — a  passport  which  belonged  to  himself.  It 
was  made  out  to  him  under  the  name  of  General  Churchill. 

His  captors  came  to  examine  him.  He  exhibited  the  pass- 
port ;  the  title  of  Marlborough  did  not  appear  there.  If  it 
had,  he  would  have  been  seized  at  once,  with  the  utmost  joy 
and  delight;  but  his  captors,  ignorant  and  unlearned  men, 
though  the  name  of  Marlborough  was  then  ringing  in  all  ears, 
did  not  recognize  the  former  appellation.  To  them  the  pass- 
port was  a  mere  credential  of  respectability. 


298  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

What  should  they  do  with  the  prisoners?  This  was  now 
an  object  of  consultation.  Perhaps  the  dark  thought  occurred 
to  them  that  they  had  better  put  them  to  death.  This  is 
what  would  have  been  done  immediately  in  ancient  times. 
Happily,  Christianity,  even  in  the  worst  wars,  has  mitigated 
materially  the  ferocious  spirit  of  warfare.  Should  they  take 
their  prisoners  to  France  ?  There  were  serious  difficulties  in 
the  way.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  carry  away  their  prisoners 
as  well  as  their  booty.  Besides,  the  country  might  be  aroused, 
and  they  might  be  compelled  to  abandon  both.  After  all,  their 
booty  had  been  very  satisfactory.  Besides,  these  poor  people 
had  lost  all  their  property.  Ultimately  they  determined  to  do 
them  no  further  harm,  but  let  them  proceed  on  their  journey. 

With  what  a  feeling  of  relief  Marlborough  must  have 
watched  their  vanishing  forms !  In  due  season  he  arrived  in 
safety  at  the  Hague.  He  was  greeted  with  the  utmost  enthu- 
siasm. That  enthusiasm  was  redoubled  when  his  narrow  es- 
cape from  captivity  became  known.  And  now  all  Marlbor- 
ough's  previous  successes  were  thrown  into  the  shade  by  the 
wonderful  victories  which  have  made  Marlborough  a  house- 
hold name  in  England  for  all  time.  So  greatly  was  that  name 
dreaded  by  the  foe  that  the  French  nurses  long  hushed  their 
children  to  sleep  by  telling  them  that  Marlborough  was  com- 
ing. Napoleon  counted  him  the  first  of  modern  generals ; 
and  when  setting  out  on  his  Russian  campaign  he  whistled 
the  air,  "  Marlbrook  s'en  va  t'en  guerre,"  a  romantic  remem- 
brance of  the  renown  of  the  great  captain. 

The  great  Schlegel  does  not  hesitate  to  speak  of  turning- 
points  in  a  man's  life  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Living  God  has 
interposed ;  and  there  is  a  crisis  not  only  for  individuals,  but 
for  nations,  and  for  the  world.  In  some  deeply  moving  catas- 
trophe of  a  man's  life  it  makes  a  distinct  and  speaking  mnni- 


NATIONAL  HISTORY. 


299 


festation  of  itself,  working  in  him  a  total  change  of  his  feelings 
and  sentiments.  But  the  Spirit's  flaming  sword  of  judgment 
may  be  turned  not  only  upon  individuals,  but  also  upon  whole 
nations  and  ages,  to  divert  them  from  error  and  unbelief,  and 
to  lead  them  back  to  truth.  Lastly,  it  may  also  be  directed 
toward  the  whole  world  and  the  whole  human  race. 


300 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Force  of  Adverse  Circumstances. 

HITHERTO  we  have  chiefly  dwelt  on  the  bright  side  of  hu- 
man endeavor,  but  there  is  also  a  dark  side  to  be  stated.  There 
are  those  who  have  turned  the  corner  and  gone  down  hill ;  who 
have  come  to  the  turning-point  and  have  taken  the  wrong  turn- 
ing ;  who  have  come  to  the  spot  where  the  two  roads  parted 
off,  and  have  stood  a  little  while  and  gone  a  little  way,  and 
have  come  back  and  pondered,  and  have  then  definitely  made 
up  their  minds — in  the  wrong  direction.  Let  us  consider  this 
a  little. 

I  suppose  that  there  is  no  expression  more  commonly  used 
among  young  men  than  "going  to  the  bad."  Now  it  may  be 
well  to  inquire  what  this  "going  to  the  bad"  may  happen  to 
mean. 

In  the  first  place,  the  number  of  men  who,  born  under  fair 
stars  and  with  fair  prospects,  nevertheless  "  go  to  the  bad,"  is 
awful,  is  simply  incalculable.  It  is  a  subject  which  suggests 
many  sad  reflections.  It  is  one  which  belongs  to  every  man's 
experience,  and,  the  wider  the  experience,  the  more  decisive 
becomes  the  observation  of  failure  and  downfall.  Thackeray 
used  to  dwell  upon  the  doctrine  that  there  was  a  skeleton  in 
every  closet.  If  he  meant  that  each  man  had  some  dark  se- 
crets in  his  mind  which  he  dared  not  reveal,  I  think  he  was 
wrong  in  that  impression.  It  was  a  libelous  hit  at  human  na- 
ture. Such  a  position  would  be  intolerable  to  a  Christian  man 
and  a  gentleman.  Depend  upon  it,  he  has  opened  the  door 


FORCE   OF  ADVERSE    CIRCUMSTANCES. 


301 


and  window  of  his  closet,  and  has  exorcised  the  ghost.  But  if 
it  is  meant  that  there  is  some  mauvais  sujet  in  each  family, 
some  member,  perhaps  deeply  beloved,  who  has  altogether 
gone  wrong,  then  I  suspect  that  the  saying  is  true.  It  is  said, 
for  instance,  by  our  teetotal  friends — let  us  hope  that  they  have 
put  a  pardonable  spice  of  exaggeration  into  the  matter — that 
there  is  no  single  family  but  has  a  drunkard  in  it. 

Let  us  look  at  cases  in  which  people  break  down. 

I  suppose  most  of  us  know  the  "  agony"  column  in  the  Lon- 
don Times.  I  don't  suppose  that  people  invent  hints  of  agoniz- 
ing stories  for  the  mere  sake  of  spending  seven  shillings  on  an 
advertisement.  What  touching  hints  of  family  history  do  we 
find  there !  How  often  the  intimation,  clear  or  veiled,  that 
some  one  has  "  gone  astray !"  That  is  the  pretty  uniform  tenor 
of  a  large  proportion  of  these  very  curious  advertisements. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  of  people  who  emerge  from  the  work- 
ing-class— which,  indeed,  is  not  a  class,  but  the  stuff  and  staple 
from  which  all  classes  are  formed — and  a  bracing,  healthful, 
cheering  reading  it  is,  though  perhaps  a  little  misleading  to 
many  hopeful  aspirants,  yet  telling  us  how  poor  men,  by  ener- 
gy, skill,  and  character,  have  attained  fame  and  fortune.  It  is 
always  exhilarating  to  read  records  of  progress.  But  the  wheel 
of  life  revolves.  There  is  both  upward  and  downward.  If 
there  are  men  who  emerge  from  the  masses  and  win  their  way 
upward,  there  are  also  men  who  lose  their  position,  gravitate 
downward,  and  are  lost  in  the  masses. 

Let  a  man  run  over  the  list  of  his  school-fellows,  and  he  will 
find  that  a  considerable  proportion  of  them  have  been  ruined 
for  life. 

At  college  we  often  hear  of  a  man  "going  to  the  bad."  It 
is  the  most  mournful  bit  of  college  slang  I  know.  To  some 
it  only  means  that  a  man  has  taken  a  very  low  class  instead  of 
a  high  class,  or  has  been  plucked  instead  of  taking  any  class 


302 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


at  all.  Or  perhaps  it  means  that  a  man  has  accumulated  a 
great  deal  of  debt,  which  his  friends  have  much  difficulty  in  dis- 
charging, or  which -has  become  a  great  incubus  upon  himself. 
There  is  no  doubt  but  these  are  serious  things  in  themselves, 
and  the  precursors  to  things  still  more  serious.  But  university 
men  who  burn  the  candle  at  both  ends  little  imagine  the 
smoke  and  sputtering  with  which  the  darkness  comes  on. 
Gunning,  in  his  "  Reminiscences  of  Cambridge,"  speaks  of 
several  cases  within  his  experience.  Once  a  gentleman,  called 
out  at  dinner  to  see  a  poor  wretch  lying  senseless  in  a  cart, 
recognized  the  wreck  of  a  university  man  who  had  been  one 
of  the  most  courted  and  brilliant  members  of  the  best  society 
of  his  day.  You  ask  after  such  a  man,  and  you  find  he  left 
college  one  night  suddenly,  and  long  years  passed  before  he 
turned  up  as  usher  in  the  vulgarest  of  commercial  schools.  An- 
other has  left  hopelessly  in  debt,  and  has  been  unable  to  take 
a  degree.  Another  has  been  refused  his  college  testimonials, 
and  consequently  can  not  take  a  family-living.  His  relations 
allow  him  a  pound  a  week,  on  the  strength  of  which  he  degen- 
erates into  a  useless  vagabond.  Another  enlisted  in  the  Line, 
and  went  out  as  a  common  soldier  to  India.  Another  is  in 
the  police  force.  Another  is  driving  a  hansom.  Another  is 
in  the  fire  brigade.  Another  emigrated  to  America,  working 
his  way  behind  the  mast  The  other  day  a  cabman  touched 
his  hat  to  a  gentleman,  who  recognized  in  him  an  old  school- 
fellow. I  do  not  cite  these  cases  as  being  altogether  unfortu- 
nate. Doubtless  each  shows  a  great  fall  off  from  a  university 
career,  but  still  there  was  decent  bread  honestly  earned.  But 
there  are  many  worse  cases  than  these.  A  man  starving  in  a 
garret  at  Islington  ;  a  man  turned  bush-ranger  in  Australia ; 
a  man  dying  in  a  work-house ;  a  man  convicted  at  the  bar  of 
the  Old  Bailey,  and  so  on,  are  instances  of  that  most  serious 
tragedy  that  may  underlie  the  slang  saying  of  "going  to  the 


FORCE   OF  ADVERSE    CIRCUMSTANCES. 


3°3 


bad."  A  very  common  form  of  a  man  "going  to  the  bad"  is 
that  he  drinks  himself  to  death,  or  is  cut  off  by  disease  which 
is  his  own  fault.  A  man,  to  use  another  slang  expression,  may 
sow  his  wild  oats,  but  he  is  never  sure  when  he  has  finished 
reaping  them. 

All  such  persons  had  their  turning-points.  You  might  trace 
up  the  evil  to  its  genesis.  A  critical  moment  came  to  them 
unknown,  when  they  had  to  choose  between  the  right  hand 
and  the  left,  and  the  choice,  apparently  arbitrary,  was  most 
probably  led  up  irresistibly  by  antecedent  events  to  a  foregone 
conclusion. 

Take  another  set  of  cases,  where  the  moral  obliquity  is  not 
equally  apparent.  All  of  a  sudden  a  man  is  arrested  suddenly 
by  some  great  misfortune.  It  is  not  in  reality  any  fault  of  his. 
The  blow  comes  with  a  crushing  force,  and  is  not,  in  many 
cases,  without  a  very  serious  and  sometimes  a  deleterious  effect 
upon  his  character. 

A  bank  suddenly  fails.  One  man  loses  his  whole  fortune. 
Another  has  a  mere  nothing,  and  he  loses  that  nothing. 

Mr.  Reade  in  one  of  his  novels  makes  a  man  lose  his  money 
at  a  bank.  He  then  turns  atheist,  and  burns  the  family  Bible. 

Even  a  sorer  trial  than  the  loss  of  fortune  is  the  indifference 
and  neglect  with  which  the  world,  or  mere  summer  friends, 
"flies  of  estate  and  sunshine,"  view  such  misfortunes. 

I  knew  a  man  once  who  had  possessed  a  considerable  for- 
tune and  some  literary  reputation.  By  some  fell  stroke  he 
lost  the  whole  of  his  property — by  a  stroke  sudden,  fatal,  and 
irretrievable.  He  went  round  to  his  friends  to  try  and  get  some 
help.  Among  others  he  went  to  the  late  Lord  Macaulay,  then 
Mr.  Macaulay.  He  came  at  an  inopportune  moment.  Macau- 
lay  had  just  lost  his  seat  for  Edinburgh,  and,  refusing  to  sit  for 
any  other  constituency,  he  resigned  office,  and  some  five  thou- 
sand a  year  with  it.  The  Whigs  were  at  that  time  firmly  in 


3°4 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


office,  and  he  was  abandoning  a  large  income  apparently  in- 
sured for  years.  He  received  my  poor  friend  with  the  great- 
est kindness,  and  handed  him  thirty  pounds,  adding,  if  I  re- 
member aright,  many  kind  words  and  promises  of  further  as- 
sistance. The  poor  man  dwelt  greatly  on  Macaulay's  cheering 
kindness.  He  told  me,  apparently  in  accordance  with  some 
scientific  vagary,  that  he  made  dinner  the  single  meal  of  the 
twenty-four  hours.  I  know  some  people  have  had  the  idea, 
and  acted  upon  it,  not  unprosperously,  but  the  sickening 
thought  occurs  to  me  that  perhaps  it  was  want  or  forced  econ- 
omy that  made  my  poor  friend  adopt  the  theory.  His  only 
means  of  support  was  the  giving  lessons  in  German.  He  was 
called  in  to  give  lessons  to  some  family,  that  of  a  great  digni- 
tary, who  had  known  him  on  equal  terms  in  his  days  of  afflu- 
ence. The  callousness,  the  uninterested  and  matter-of-course 
way  in  which  they  took  his  misfortunes — above  all,  the  manner 
in  which  they  abandoned  their  cordiality  toward  an  old  friend 
for  an  indifference  toward  a  new  language-master,  weighed 
heavily  upon  his  spirits.  One  day  the  luckless  German  master 
committed  suicide  by  cutting  his  throat. 

In  such  cases  it  can  hardly  be  broadly  asserted  that  a  man 
has  by  his  own  misconduct  gone  utterly  the  wrong  way. 
There  has  been  some  staggering  blow  of  adversity,  and  his 
nature  has  reeled  and  sunk  beneath  it.  Some  splendid  stroke 
of  prosperity  might  have  had  an  equally  disastrous  effect.  A 
man  told  me  once  that,  having  come  into  an  unexpected  leg- 
acy, he  had  no  sleep  in  consequence  for  eleven  nights.  I 
think  that  people  who  speak  of  such  prolonged  sleeplessness 
unconsciously  exaggerate,  and  do  not  allow  for  some  surrep- 
titious winks  :  life,  without  any  sleep  at  all,  could  hardly  be 
sustained  beyond  a  few  days.  Once  I  traveled  in  a  railway 
carriage  in  the  north  of  France,  and  met  a  madman  in  charge 
of  his  keepers.  They  told  me  that  the  unhappy  man  had 


FORCE   OF  ADVERSE   CIRCUMSTANCES.  305 

suddenly  come  into  a  large  fortune,  and  had  lost  his  reason. 
Dr.  Forbes  Winslow  has  a  striking  anecdote  in  that  striking 
and  most  remarkable  work  on  the  "  Obscurer  Diseases  of  the 
Mind."  A  man  on  the  Stock  Exchange  one  day  made  ten 
thousand  pounds.  His  brain  was  turned  in  a  moment.  He 
commenced  saying  "  Ten  thousand  pounds !  ten  thousand 
pounds !"  and  went  on  saying  it,  with  incredible  rapidity, 
through  many  weary  months  of  madness.  One  is  very  sorry 
to  refer  madness  to  a  sufferer's  own  fault,  but  a  sounder  moral 
sense,  undebased  by  excessive  love  of  money,  might  have 
averted  such  a  catastrophe. 

There  is  only  one  way  of  meeting  such  misfortunes  as  may 
assuredly  come  to  us.  So  to  speak,  we  live  in  the  trembling 
valleys,  such  as  those  below  the  slopes  of  Etna,  and  are  liable 
to  the  fiery  irruption. 

There  is  only  one  way  of  meeting  the  instances  where  men 
break  down,  or  come  to  grief  in  consequence  of  some  sudden 
stroke  of  fortune  or  misfortune — the  two  opposing  poles,  arc- 
tic and  antarctic,  on  which  one  is  equally  liable  to  be  wrecked. 
A  man's  philosophy  will  not  suffice.  It  would  conduct  us  ei- 
ther to  Epicureanism  or  Stoicism.  The  one  is  an  organized 
selfishness,  that  would  turn  wealth  to  basest  uses ;  the  other, 
a  pride  and  inhuman  disdain  of  outward  circumstances  that 
in  an  extreme  case  would  take  refuge  from  sorrow  in  suicide. 
It  is  only  the  ballasted  mind  which,  self-poised,  would  be  un- 
swayed by  veering  currents.  However  far  back  removed  the 
stages  of  the  radical  defect  may  be,  the  matter  narrows  itself 
at  last  to  the  want  of  that  religious  sense  which  determines 
the  relative  proportion  of  things.  Where  the  overwhelming 
thought  of  a  future  life  is  present,  it  absorbs  minor  cares  and 
elevates  ordinary  motives.  Neither  is  it  any  answer  to  say 
that  men  who  profess  to  be  actuated  by  such  motives  often 
practically  forget  them.  I  have  somewhere  read  of  a  man 


306  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

who  day  by  day  was  approaching  some  vast  mountain,  wheth- 
er Alp,  or  Andes,  or  Himalayan.  The  vast  snowy  height 
above  him,  however,  governed  all  the  horizon,  and  dominated 
all  other  natural  phenomena.  It  might  be  that  any  casual 
employment  or  chain  of  thought  caused  a  brief  forgetful  ness. 
It  might  be  that  the  interposition  of  a  hand's  breadth  before 
the  eyes  served  to  blot  out  the  mountain  from  the  view.  But 
there  was  no  confusion  of  thought  between  the  relative  pro- 
portions of  the  hand's  breadth  and  of  the  mountain.  Even 
so  in  life,  when  the  great  aspiration  of  immortality  is  firmly 
grasped,  mere  human  things  sink  into  a  comparative  insignifi- 
cance. There  will  be  little  of  permanent  elation  or  perma- 
nent depression.  The  inequalities  on  the  earth's  surface  are 
as  nothing  when  we  are  simply  considering  the  magnitude  of 
the  earth. 

There  is  always  a  consolation  for  those  who  may  look  back 
sorrowfully  on  life,  and  think,  as  Mr.  Dickens  made  one  of  his 
characters  say,  "  that  it  is  all  a  muddle  !"  and,  as  one  man  sor- 
rowfully said  toward  the  end  of  his  life,  that  "  his  youth  was  a 
blunder,  his  manhood  a  struggle,  and  his  old  age  a  regret." 
The  blunder,  the  struggle,  and  the  regret  may  have  formed 
part  of  the  discipline  of  life.  It  would  have  been  ill  indeed 
for  a  man  to  be  able  to  assert  that  his  youth  was  triumph,  his 
manhood  rest,  and  his  old  age  comfort  and  complacency.  All 
men  need  through  errors  to  attain  to  truth,  through  struggles 
to  victory,  through  regrets  to  that  sorrow  which  is  a  very 
source  of  life,  that  repentance  which  is  not  to  be  repented  of. 
Men  must  rise  in  an  ever-ascending  scale,  like  that  ladder  of 
St.  Augustine,  by  which  men,  through  stepping-stones  of  their 
dead  selves,  rise  to  higher  things,  or  those  steps  of  Alciphron, 
the  Epicurean,  which  crumbled  away  into  nothingness  as  fast 
as  each  footfall  left  them.  Our  very  mistakes  in  life  may  be 
overruled  for  a  higher  end,  and  our  very  tears  water  spiritual 


FORCE    OF  ADVERSE    CIRCUMSTANCES.  307 

growth  that  may  be  rich  with  immortal  foliage  and  fruit.  It 
is  not,  after  all,  what  a  man  may  have  been,  but  what  a  man 
is,  which  makes  his  true  happiness  and  fixes  his  real  state. 
If  only  we  are  saved  at  last,  if  only  we  escape  safe  to  shore, 
it  matters  little  though  we  are  only  rescued  in  clinging  to 
spars  and  broken  pieces  of  the  ship.  When  one  views  the  mis- 
eries of  humanity,  where  perhaps  some  single  act  has  ruined 
a  whole  life,  and  has  brought  a  misery  that  seems  incommen- 
surate to  the  offense,  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  consola- 
tion can  be  found.  This  sharp  suffering  may  be  remedial, 
and  indeed  essential  for  life.  The  image  that  comforts  one 
most  is  that  suggested  by  surgery.  You  see  a  surgeon  about 
to  perform  some  operation  which  we  know  will  inflict  pain, 
and  perhaps  be  perilous  to  life.  The  instruments  look  so 
cold  and  keen  and  bright,  and  there  seems  something  almost 
cruel  about  the  surgeon  as  with  calm  nerve  and  decision  he 
proceeds  to  operate.  But  his  course  is  dictated  by  skill  and 
wisdom,  and  frequently  enough  by  the  purest  benevolence. 
This  is  just  the  same  way  that  we  may  believe  God  deals  with 
us.  Having  endowed  his  creatures  with  free  will,  we  may  say 
that  a  state  of  sin  follows  at  once  on  the  power  of  free  voli- 
tion. And  all  the  sorrow  of  life  is  but  the  Divine  Master's 
hand  cutting  away  the  diseased  portions  of  our  nature,  that 
we  may  live  and  not  die.  The  force  of  adverse  circumstances 
is  one  of  the  weapons  in  the  divine  arsenal  whereby  our  self- 
discipline  is  accomplished,  and  we  are  brought  out  of  our- 
selves by  the  sorrow  that  comes  not  from  the  ground,  and  the 
trouble  that  comes  not  from  the  dust,  into  simple  dependence 
on  a  supernatural  power. 

"You  thought,  by  efforts  of  your  own, 
To  take  at  last  each  jarring  tone 
Out  of  your  life,  till  all  should  meet 
In  one  majestic  music  sweet ; 


308  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

And  deemed  that  in  your  own  heart's  ground 

The  root  of  good  was  to  be  found ; 

And  that  by  careful  watering, 

And  earnest  tendance,  we  might  bring 

The  bud,  the  blossom,  and  the  fruit 

To  grow  and  flourish  from  that  root ; 

You  deemed  you  needed  nothing  more 

Than  skill  and  courage  to  explore 

Deep  down  enough  in  your  own  heart 

To  where  the  well-head  lay  apart, 

Which  must  the  springs  of  being  feed, 

And  that  these  fountains  did  not  need 

The  soil  that  choked  them  moved  away, 

To  bubble  in  the  open  day. 

But  thanks  to  heaven  it  is  not  so ; 

That  root  a  richer  soil  doth  know 

Than  our  poor  hearts  could  e'er  supply : 

That  stream  is  from  a  source  more  high ; 

From  God  it  came,  to  God  returns, 

Not  nourished  from  our  scanty  urns, 

But  fed  from  his  unfailing  river, 

Which  runs,  and  will  run  on  forever."* 

There  is  somewhere  on  our  coast  a  fountain  within  high- 
water  mark  on  the  sea-shore.  Twice  a  day  the  tide  spreads 
over  it,  and  the  pure,  sweet  water  is  defiled  and  spoiled  by 
the  salt,  bitter  wave.  But  the  tide  goes  down,  and  the  fount- 
ain washes  itself  clear  from  the  defilement.  As  that  troubled 
sea  goes  down  once  more  the  fountain  gushes  pure  and  sweet 
beneath  the  pure,  sweet  heavens.  This  is  the  emblem  of  a 
life  that  is  in  daily  conflict  with  the  world  and  with  adverse 
circumstances.  Again  and  again  it  is  overpowered  by  those 
perplexed  circumstances  and  tumultuous  voices,  but  these  all 
subside,  and  the  soul  is  left  alone  with  God. 
*  Archbishop  Trench. 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE.  309 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Theories  of  Life. 

EVERY  man  is,  in  some  sort  of  way,  a  philosopher.  As  he 
accumulates  the  facts  of  experience  he  begins  to  generalize 
from  them.  A  man  more  and  more  perceives  the  immense 
importance  of  intention  as  determining  the  moral  quality  of 
actions.  Somehow  a  man  finds  the  necessity  of  clinging  to 
some  moral  support.  In  cases  of  failure  he  will  at  least  try 
to  have  the  consolation  that  he  acted  for  the  best.  Very  prob- 
ably the  man  turns  an  optimist,  believing  that  every  thing  has 
really  been  for  the  best ;  or  even  if  he  turns  pessimist,  deter- 
minately  believing  that  every  thing  has  happened  for  the  worst, 
he  is  still  constructing  some  kind  of  philosophy  for  himself. 

Of  course  many  men  can  only  philosophize  these  philos- 
ophies in  a  very  crude  kind  of  way.  Many,  on  the  other  side, 
do  so  in  a  very  elaborate  and  complicated  manner.  But 
whether  men  distinctly  formulate  their  views  or  not,  they  cer- 
tainly do  make  out  some  kind  of  theory  of  life  for  themselves. 
Here  is  our  life,  and  the  question  is,  "  What  shall  we  do  with 
it  ?"  In  such  an  inquiry  every  thing  depends  on  what  theory 
of  life  we  may  adopt.  There  are  various  theories  of  life  be- 
fore the  world.  Approfondissez — go  to  the  bottom  of  things 
— is  a  motto  that  has  a  wide  predominance  at  the  present 
day.  Men  are  not  so  well  content  as  they  used  to  be  with 
being  practical  atheists,  but  in  an  age  of  general  discussion 
and  information  they  seek  some  basis  of  argument  that  may 
give  color  to  and  explain  their  lives.  The  question  that  un- 


310 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


derlies  the  whole  matter  is  whether  we  believe  in  a  Living 
God,  and,  supposing  we  believe  in  him,  whether  we  regard 
him  as  a  Loving  Father,  loving  and  caring  for  his  children,  or 
whether  we  regard  him  simply  as  the  impersonation  of  the 
causes  which  are  at  work  in  the  material  universe,  "  looking 
with  sober  satisfaction  upon  the  successful  expansion  of  the 
original  seed  which  commenced  the  formation  of  the  vast  ma- 
terial organism." 

A  man,  therefore,  must  arrive  at  some  solid  view  of  human 
life.  He  must  not  be  one  of  those  who  are  ever  learning  and 
yet  never  able  to  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth.  Until 
the  central  idea  of  life  is  adjusted,  we  shall  be  unable  to  find 
a  balanced  and  well-ordered  life.  A  man  will,  indeed,  be 
ever  proceeding  in  knowledge,  and  from  time  to  time  he  will 
have  to  put  his  added  experience  and  ideas  into  definite  rela- 
tion with  his  belief.  Some  people  form  their  opinions  dog- 
matically, and  then,  as  they  say,  lay  them  on  the  shelf.  Oth- 
ers always  hold  their  opinions  "  in  solution,"  prepared  to  mod- 
ify or  reject  them  on  any  advent  of  further  light.  An  opinion 
permanently  laid  upon  the  shelf,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  one 
only  retained  in  a  settled  state  of  unsettledness,  seems  equally 
removed  from  an  intelligent  holding  of  it.  A  man  will,  above 
all  things,  hold  the  love  of  truth.  He  will  reverence  truth  as 
he  does  his  conscience.  But  having  sought  carefully  for  it, 
and  attained  it,  not  as  a  matter  of  opinion,  but  from  all  the 
best  thought  and  experience,  he  will  seek  to  be  settled  and 
grounded.  Above  all,  he  will  know  that,  with  the  safeguard 
of  a  pure,  unselfish,  and  laborious  life,  he  can  not  wander  far 
from  it.  He  will  know,  indeed,  that  there  may  be  an  inaccu- 
racy and  incompleteness  in  his  views  which  time  alone  can 
clarify  and  extend  ;  and  in  his  own  mind  he  will  be  constant- 
ly adjusting  the  relations  of  things  new  to  things  old.  He  will 
also  constantly  hold  the  supreme  majesty  of  truth,  and  wel- 


THEORIES   OF  LIFE.  311 

come  every  fact,  however  opposed  to  his  dearest  beliefs,  which 
is  brought  home  by  irrefragable  argument  or  fact.  But  he 
.holds  firmly  to  his  belief,  since  he  has  sought  to  build  upon  a 
rock,  and  has  so  built  up  the  edifice  of  his  faith  from  deep 
waters  and  amid  many  storms ;  and  he  feels  pretty  certain 
that  no  difficulties  will  represent  that  investigation  and  thought 
with  which  former  difficulties  have  been  overcome.  What  Philip 
van  Artevelde  says  is  especially  true  of  religion  : 

"  All  my  life  long 

I  have  beheld  with  most  respect  the  man 
Who  knew  himself  and  knew  the  ways  before  him, 
And  from  among  them  chose  considerately, 
And,  having  chosen,  with  a  steadfast  mind 
Pursued  his  purpose." 

The  great  tendency  of  the  present  day  is  in  the  direction 
of  physical  science.  We  observe,  we  note,  we  examine  and 
cross-examine  facts,  and  from  phenomena  we  attain  to  law. 
For  a  time  we  seem  bound  up  and  delivered  over  to  dead, 
impersonal,  pitiless  laws.  The  world  seems  as  some  vast 
manufactory,  in  which  we  hear  incessantly  the  clash  and 
whirring  of  a  complex  machinery.  But  we  come  to  learn 
that  the  Lawgiver  is  behind  his  laws,  and  that,  paradoxical  as 
it  may  sound,  while  he  hides  himself  behind  them,  he  also  re- 
veals himself  through  them.  For  these  laws,  too, 'are  "ema- 
nations of  the  all-beauteous  mind."  In  a  sense  they  shadow 
forth  the  Divinity  that  contrived  them.  Moreover,  we  learn 
the  limitations  of  these-  laws ;  that  there  are  other  facts,  the 
facts  of  mind  and  conscience,  as  certain  as  any  material  facts, 
though  unamenable  to  physical  law.  As  Mr.  Palgrave  strik- 
ingly says : 

"  To  matter  or  to  force 

The  All  is  not  confined ; 
Beside  the  law  of  things 

Is  set  the  law  of  mind ; 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


One  speaks  in  rock  and  star, 

And  one  within  the  brain, 
In  unison  at  times, 

And  then  apart  again ; 
And  both  in  one  have  brought  us  hither, 
That  we  may  know  our  whence  and  whither. 

"  The  sequences  of  law 

We  learn  through  mind  alone  ; 
'Tis  only  through  the  Soul 

That  aught  we  know  is  known : 
With  equal  voice  she  tells 

Of  what  we  touch  and  see 
Within  these  bounds  of  life 

And  of  a  life  to  be ; 

Proclaiming  one  who  brought  us  hither, 
And  holds  the  keys  of  whence  and  whither." 

Or  as  Principal  Shairp*  acutely  puts  it :  "  One  thing  often 
said  before  must  be  repeated.  This  supposed  necessity  to 
rest  in  the  perception  of  ordered  phenomena  is  no  necessity 
at  all,  but  an  artificial  and  arbitrarily  imposed  limitation, 
against  which  thought  left  to  its  natural  action  rebels.  It  is 
impossible  for  any  reflective  mind,  not  dominated  by  a  sys- 
tem, to  regard  the  ordered  array  of  physical  forces,  and  to  rest 
satisfied  with  this  order,  without  going  on  to  ask  whence  it 
came,  what  placed  it  there.  Thought  can  not  be  kept  back, 
when  it  sees  arrangement,  from  asking  what  is  the  arranging 
power ;  when  it  sees  existence,  from  inquiring  how  it  came  to 
exist ;  and  the  question  is  a  natural  and  legitimate  one,  in 
spite  of  all  that  phenomenalism  may  say  against  it,  and  it 
will  not  cease  to  be  asked  while  there  are  reasoning  men  to 
ask  it." 

*  I  must  in  this  chapter  express  my  obligations  to  Principal  Shairp's 
admirable  little  book.  "  Culture  and  Religion,"  which  I  would  venture  very 
strongly  to  recommend. 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE. 


313 


Men  will,  either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  philosophize 
on  life ;  and  there  is  no  greater  "  moment"  than  when  a  man 
resolutely  takes  up  some  system  of  life,  and  determines  to 
abide  by  it.  Here  is  Professor  Huxley's  famous  view  :  "  That 
man,  I  think,  has  had  a  liberal  education  who  has  been  so 
trained  in  youth  that  his  body  is  the  ready  servant  of  his 
will,  and  does  with  ease  and  pleasure  all  the  work  that  as  a 
mechanism  it  is  capable  of;  whose  intellect  is  a  clear,  cold, 
logic  engine,  with  all  its  parts  of  equal  strength  and  in  smooth 
working  order — ready,  like  a  steam-engine,  to  be  turned  to 
any  kind  of  work,  and  spin  the  gossamers  as  well  as  forge  the 
anchors  of  the  mind  ;  whose  mind  is  stored  with  a  knowledge 
of  the  great  and  fundamental  truths  of  Nature,  and  of  the  laws 
of  her  operations ;  one  who,  no  stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of  life 
and  fire,  but  whose  passions  are  trained  to  come  to  heel  by  a 
vigorous  will,  the  servant  of  a  tender  conscience ;  who  has 
learned  to  love  all  beauty,  whether  of  nature  or  art ;  to  hate 
all  vileness,  and  to  respect  others  as  himself."  This  is  a  no- 
ble passage,  regarded  as  an  eloquent  exposition  of  a  merely 
scientific  theory  of  culture.  But  it  is  concerned  merely  with 
the  phenomena  of  life.  We  are  to  take  all  the  facts  of  life ; 
we  are  to  look  at  human  life  as  a  game,  as  Professor  Huxley 
goes  on  to  explain,  in  which  we  are  to  seek  to  win  for  our- 
selves. Man  is  to  be  "  the  servant  of  a  tender  conscience ;" 
but  we  are  at  a  loss  to  see  how,  under  such  a  system,  a  tender 
conscience  is  to  be  framed.  God  is  reduced  to  an  automaton, 
a  mere  personification  of  dead  law.  Such  a  system,  if  consist- 
ent with  itself,  would  abjure  the  moral  elements  ;  but,  by  the 
introduction  of  high-sounding  moral  phrases,  we  have  to  see 
how  far  it  is  consistent.  The  whole  merit  of  life  is  made  to 
consist  in  winning  a  merely  human  game.  But  how  does  it 
apply  to  those  who  have  been  liberated  from  merely  secular 
aims ;  those  who  have  been  content  to  sacrifice  all  the  ordi- 

O 


314  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

nary  aims  of  life,  who  have  been  content  to  labor  and  suffer 
and  die,  if  knowledge  can  be  extended,  if  society  can  be  puri- 
fied, if  the  limits  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  can  be  enlarged  ? 
Would  the  true  heroes  of  the  world  ever  have  done  any  thing 
on  this  view  of  life  ?  Some  men  lay  the  greatest  stress  upon 
culture — that  new  and  somewhat  artificial  word  on  which  so 
much  is  built  up  by  our  philosophical  culturists,  of  whom, 
perhaps,  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  is  the  greatest  exponent  since 
Gothe.  But  it  is  important  to  have  a  clear  idea  of  what  is 
really  meant  by  culture.  "  Culture,"  says  Principal  Shairp, 
"  is  not  a  product  of  mere  study.  Learning  may  be  got  from 
books,  but  not  culture.  It  is  a  mere  living  process,  and  re- 
quires that  the  student  shall  at  times  close  his  books,  leave  his 
solitary  room,  and  mingle  with  his  fellow-men.  He  must  seek 
the  intercourse  of  living  hearts  as  well  as  of  dead  books — 
especially  the  companionship  of  those  of  his  own  contempora- 
ries whose  minds  and  characters  are  fitted  to  instruct,  elevate, 
and  sweeten  his  own.  Another  thing  required  is  the  disci- 
pline which  must  be  carried  on  by  each  man  in  himself;  the 
learning  of  self-control,  the  forming  of  habits,  the  effort  to 
overcome  what  is  evil,  and  to  strengthen  what  is  good  in  his 
own  nature.  But  to  enumerate  all  the  means  of  culture  would 
be  impossible,  seeing  they  are  wide  as  the  world,  and  the  proc- 
ess  begins  with  the  cradle,  and  we  may  well  believe  does  not 
end  with  the  grave."  This  eloquent  writer  goes  on  to  argne  : 
"  Start  from  the  manward  pole,  and  go  along  the  line  honest- 
ly and  thoroughly,  and  you  land  in  the  divine  one.  Start 
from  the  divine  pole,  and  carry  out  all  that  it  implies,  and 
you  land  in  the  manward  pole,  or  the  perfection  of  humanity. 
Ideally  considered,  then,  culture  must  culminate  in  religion, 
and  religion  in  culture."  But  most  men  find  it  difficult  to  rec- 
oncile the  two,  and  reconcile  the  claims  of  culture  and  religion. 
But  if  we  refuse  to  limit  culture  by  any  narrow  definition,  if 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE. 


we  refuse  to  confine  culture  within  the  limits  of  positivism, 
and  make  it  embrace  the  nature  of  man  in  its  totality,  then 
culture  must  rise  to  some  better  idea  of  culture  than  that  en- 
tertained by  the  culturists. 

Of  these,  Gothe  would  probably  be  considered  the  chief. 
He  endeavored  to  confine  culture  entirely  within  the  limits  of 
human  development.  There  is  probably  nothing  contrary  to 
this,  even  in  the  second  part  of  "  Faust,"  although  the  Ger- 
mans have  imported  into  Gothe,  as  they  have  imported  into 
Shakespeare,  very  much  of  what  Gothe  or  Shakespeare  must 
have  been  altogether  unconscious.  Gothe  was  a  many-sided 
man,  and  it  is  impossible  to  contemplate  without  wonder  all 
that  he  did  in  the  development  of  his  nature  in  so  many  va- 
ried relations.  But  the  career  was  not  a  satisfactory  one,  and 
a  darkness  seems  to  rest  upon  it  at  the  last.  His  purely  self- 
ish system  was  not  one  which  traveled  beyond  the  precincts 
of  sense.  The  philosophy  of  Shakespeare,  if  he  may  be  said  to 
have  held  a  philosophy,  was  like  Comte's,  like  Gothe's,  like 
Bacon's,  in  its  natural  system,  entirely  limited  to  the  facts  of 
this  life,  ignoring  those  higher  spiritual  facts,  which,  though  im- 
measurable, imponderable,  invisible,  are  as  true  as  any  of  the 
objective  facts  of  nature. 

I  can  not  but  think  that  Mr.  Tennyson's  fine  poem  of  the 
"  Palace  of  Art"  portrays  the  soul  that  has  built  up  its  rest  in 
every  thing  that  can  administer  gratification  to  the  senses  and 
the  intellect,  but  has  found  all  this  utterly  break  down  in  a 
moment  of  supreme  trial.  When  the  fool  in  the  parable  says, 
"  Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years,"  I  do 
not  understand  by  these  goods  that  which  relates  merely  to 
the  eating,  drinking,  and  making  merry.  The  expression  is 
used  of  the  soul  that  trusts  to  its  own  powers  and  its  own  re- 
sources, trusts  to  that  which  is  altogether  external  to  the  love 
and  will  of  God. 


316  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

The  Soul  abides  in  the  wide,  royal  palace,  lavished  with 
every  thing  of  literature  and  art,  of  all  that  the  "supreme 
Caucasian  mind"  can  invent  or  suggest,  and  filled  with  con- 
tempt for  humbler  men. 

"  O  all  things  fair  to  sate  my  various  eyes  ! 

0  shapes  and  hues  that  please  me  well ! 

0  silent  faces  of  the  great  and  wise, 
My  gods  with  whom  I  dwell ! 

"  O  God-like  isolation  which  art  mine, 

1  can  but  count  thee  perfect  gain ; 

What  time  I  watch  the  darkening  droves  of  swine 
That  range  on  yonder  plain  ! 

"  Then  of  the  moral  instinct  she  would  prate, 

And  of  the  rising  from  the  dead, 
As  hers  by  right  of  full-accomplished  fate, 
And  at  the  last  she  said  : 

"  I  take  possession  of  man's  mind  and  deed ; 
I  care  not  what  the  sects  may  brawl ; 

1  sit  as  God,  holding  no  form  of  creed, 
But  contemplating  all." 

The  downfall  of  that  Soul  is  then  set  forth  by  the  poet  in 
the  finest  vein  of  human  parabolic  preaching. 

I  can  very  well  understand  how  to  many  the  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge is  indeed  every  thing.  And  the  poet  beautifully  shows 
how  knowledge  may  be  gloriously  used  after  the  soul  has 
gained  the  supreme  good  : 

"  Yet  pull  not  down  my  palace  towers,  that  are 

So  lightly,  beautifully  built : 
Perchance  I  may  return  with  others  there, 
When  I  have  purged  my  guilt." 

I  read  the  other  day  of  a  great  man  beginning  to  learn 
German  after  his  fortieth  year.  When  Robert  Hall,  aged  and 
racked  with  pain,  read  Macaulay's  first  essay,  he  set  to  work 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE.  317 

at  Italian  in  order  to  judge  of  the  parallel  drawn  between  Mil- 
ton and  Dante.  I  remember  hearing  of  some  Americans  who 
imagined,  in  a  moment  of  preternatural  acuteness,  that  the 
judgment-day  was  at  hand.  They  concluded,  however,  that 
the  judgment-day  could  not  find  them  better  employed  than 
lighting  their  candles  and  going  to  their  proper  business.  A 
similar  story  is  related  of  the  most  saintly  of  English  judges.* 
A  man  might  be  profitably  employed  to  the  last  day  of  his  life 
in  gathering  up  new  facts  in  science  or  new  conclusions.  It 
is  sometimes  said  that  the  next  world  finds  us  very  much  as 
this  world  leaves  us.  The  remark  is  perhaps  truer  than  might 
be  supposed.  Our  stock  of  ideas  and  knowledge  now  may 
have  some  direct  relation  to  that  which  we  may  start  with 
hereafter. 

But  besides  anti-Christian  philosophical  systems,  there  are 
practical  plans  and  theories  of  life  which,  without  rising  to  the 
dignity  of  being  in  any  degree  philosophical,  do  largely  domi- 

*  "In  the  year  1666  an  opinion  did  run  through  the  nation  that  the  end 
of  the  world  would  come  that  year.  This  had  spread  mightily  among 
the  people ;  and  Judge  Hale  going  that  year  the  Western  Circuit,  it  hap- 
pened that  as  he  was  on  the  bench  at  the  assizes,  a  most  terrible  storm  fell 
out  very  unexpectedly,  accompanied  with  such  flashes  of  lightning  and  claps 
of  thunder  that  the  like  will  hardly  fall  out  in  an  age  :  upon  which  a  whis- 
per or  a  rumor  ran  through  the  crowd,  that  now  was  the  world  to  end  and 
the  day  of  judgment  to  begin ;  and  on  this  there  followed  a  general  con- 
sternation in  the  whole  assembly,  and  all  men  forgot  the  business  they  were 
met  about,  and  betook  themselves  to  their  prayers.  This,  added  to  the 
horror  raised  by  the  storm,  looked  very  dismally,  insomuch  that  my  inform- 
ant, a  man  of  no  ordinary  resolution  and  firmness  of  mind,  confessed  it 
made  a  great  impression  upon  himself.  But  he  told  me  that  he  did  observe 
the  judge  not  a  whit  affected,  and  was  going  on  with  the  business  of  the 
court  in  his  ordinary  manner ;  from  which  he  made  this  conclusion — that 
his  thoughts  were  so  well  fixed,  that  he  believed  if  the  world  had  been 
really  to  end,  it  would  have  given  him  no  considerable  disturbance." — Life 
of  Sir  Matthew  Hale. 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE, 


nate  in  the  minds  of  many.  There  is  no  common  denomina- 
tor that  can  measure  the  immense  difference  between  human 
minds.  While  one  man's  nature  is  entirely  occupied  in  the 
cultivation  of  the  intellectual  faculties  and  the  eradication  of 
moral  evil,  another  man's  soul  is  wrapped  up  in  dreams  of 
pride,  selfishness,  and  wealth  One  man's  whole  nature  is 
deeply  moved  and  troubled  because  he  can  not  understand 
the  origin  of  evil  or  the  dealings  of  Providence,  and  another 
man's  soul  is  troubled  by  no  deeper  emotions  than  those  re- 
lating to  the  rise  or  fall  of  stock.  We  can  not  but  think  that 
in  the  ordinary  novel  one  finds  the  expression  of  vulgar  theo- 
ries of  life.  It  is  easy  to  see  of  some  French  novelists  that 
their  imagination  can  invent  no  higher  state  of  life  than  lots 
of  pleasure,  money,  and  wine,  and  to  roll  under  some  gor- 
geously laden  table  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning. 

Moreover,  there  is  a  point  of  view  from  which  the  most  or- 
dinary novel  has  its  moral  and  psychological  interest.  If  it 
tells  us  little  else,  it  tells  us  a  great  deal  about  its  author.  It 
reveals  to  us  many  both  of  the  most  common  and  the  most 
curious  workings  of  the  human  mind.  For  the  fortunes  of 
the  hero  or  the  actors  we  have  little  sympathy.  The  hero 
may  stop,  or  not,  the  runaway  horse,  with  its  lovely  but  sense- 
less burden ;  the  unjust  will  may  stand  or  be  critically  over- 
thrown as  the  judge  is  about  to  sum  up ;  the  villain  may 
leave,  or  may  not  leave,  a  full  confession  of  his  guilt ;  so  far 
as  we  ourselves  are  personally  concerned,  the  narrative  may 
quite  fail  to  excite  our  flagging  interest.  But  it  is  really  worth 
while  to  examine  the  particular  kind  of  mind  which  has  pro- 
duced a  particular  kind  of  novel.  By  use  we  may  learn  to 
discriminate  between  the  real  character  of  the  novelist  and 
the  mere  veneering  of  language.  The  novelist  really  answers 
a  great  many  interrogatories  which  we  might  feel  inclined  to 
put  to  him.  He  truly  goes  into  the  confessional,  whispers 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE.  319 

every  fact  of  his  history,  unbares  the  cogitations  of  his  soul. 
There  are  not  many  novels  from  which  we  may  not,  more  or 
less,  disentangle  an  autobiographical  element.  Only,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  confessional,  though  it  may  be  interesting  at  first, 
there  is  a  terrible  sameness  about  it  afterward.  The  charac- 
ter of  this  self-inculpating  evidence  is,  however,  mainly  of  a 
negative  kind.  We  detect  the  want  of  earnestness  and  sim- 
plicity of  feeling.  We  see  the  want  of  real  discrimination  of 
character,  of  true  delicacy  of  mind.  We  see  how  thin  and 
worthless  and  conventional  is  the  whole  estimate  of  life  and 
character.  We  notice  the  absence  of  any  broad  sympathies, 
of  any  high  aims,  of  any  heart-felt  religious  motives.  Most  of 
all,  we  see  what  are  the  ordinary  aspirations  of  essentially  vul- 
gar people.  They  reveal  to  us  their  day-dreams  and  reveries. 
We  see  their  discontent,  with  the  duties  and  the  work  they 
have  to  do,  and  their  sighings  after  the  boundless  wealth  and 
enjoyment  which  will  really  be  their  ruin.  They  permit  us  to 
observe  what  would  be  the  Elysium  of  their  souls.  There  was 
a  merchant  who  wished  for  no  better  heaven  than  the  world, 
with  the  addition  of  a  good  many  more  thousands  in  the  funds. 
It  is  a  heathenish  notion — that  of  the  Turk  or  Indian,  who  be- 
lieves that  the  next  world  will  be  the  heightened  sensual  pleas- 
ures of  this  life — which  the  novel-writer  too  often  shares  with 
the  candid  mercantile  man  we  have  cited.  Nor  is  this  all. 
The  enervating  scenes  of  luxury,  and  the  suggestions  of  pas- 
sion and  voluptuousness,  which  are  so  invariable  in  sensation- 
al fiction,  are,  most  probably,  the  reflex  of  the  author's  mind. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  a  woman  may  write  sensational  novels, 
as  a  mere  branch  of  useful  industry,  while  she  spends  most  of 
her  leisure  time  in  cutting  bread  and  butter  for  her  children. 
But,  generally,  the  world  is  right,  in  spite  of  indignant  protests, 
in  conceiving  that  some  sort  of  relationship  subsists  between 
a  writer  and  his  works.  It  is  not  an  agreeable  idea  that  we 


320 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


derive  from  being  favored  with  glimpses  into  these  polluted 
chambers  of  imagination. 

Of  course  we  are-very  far  from  saying  that  the  facile  habit 
of  novel  composition  has  lost  its  value  and  compensation  for 
many  minds.  Only  too  often  it  is  the  favorite  occupation  of 
the  mannish  woman  or  the  womanish  man.  But  on  many 
minds  it  must  act  beneficially,  as  a  gentle  stimulant  or  a  gen- 
tle sedative.  To  many  it  affords  a  natural  outlet  to  over- 
charged feelings,  to  tender  reminiscences,  to  the  desire  to  vin- 
dicate uncomprehended  characters  and  careers.  Many  na- 
tures expand  into  fiction  as  naturally  as  the  earth  into  flowers 
or  the  birds  into  song.  But  in  many  cases  it  affords  only  an 
ugly  exhibition  of  a  false  ideal  of  life.  It  would  be  a  good 
plan,  after  people  have  written  their  novels,  and  have  richly 
reaped  occupation  and  pleasure  from  the  pursuit,  to  commit 
the  pages  to  the  flames, 

"  And  watch  with  an  unfaltering  eye 
Their  darling  visions  till  they  die." 

There  is  one  other  subject  of  supreme  importance  which 
fitly  belongs  to  this  chapter,  on  which  we  can  not  dwell,  but 
which  we  would  not  leave  without  a  mention,  although  a  men- 
tion altogether  disproportioned  to  the  real  value  of  the  sub- 
ject. This  is  the  question  of  a  particular  Providence  presid- 
ing in  the  events  of  human  life.  On  this  point  we  shall  con- 
tent ourselves  with  reproducing  the  views  of  one  who  may  al- 
most be  said  to  have  solved  this  great  enigma. 

There  is  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  belief  in  a  superin- 
tending Providence  with  that  of  the  free  will  and  free  agen- 
cy of  man,  which  question  leads  to  the  mysterious  difficulty 
concerning  the  origin  of  evil.  Dr.  Coplestone,  the  late  Bishop 
of  Llandaff,  regards  the  events  of  this  life  as  subject  to  the 
control  of  Divine  Providence,  but  he  will  not  allow  the  belief 
of  this  controlling  power  to  be  contradictory  to  the  belief  of 


THEORIES   OF  LIFE. 


321 


the  freedom  of  human  actions.  He  says,  in  his  work  on  "  Ne- 
cessity and  Predestination  :"  "  It  does  not  follow  that  because 
we  believe  this  power  to  be  exercised,  therefore  it  is  exercised 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  influence.  And  again,  it  may  be 
(to  speak  in  a  manner  adapted  to  human  conceptions  and  hu- 
man experience),  it  may  be  kept  in  reserve  to  act  upon  occa- 
sions :  it  may  form  the  plan  and  the  outline,  and  delegate  the 
subordinate  parts  to  minor  agents ;  it  may,  for  the  purpose  of 
exercising  the  fidelity  and  zeal  of  those  agents,  one  while  keep 
itself  out  of  sight ;  or  at  another,  to  animate  their  exertions, 
let  them  perceive  its  presence ;  or,  to  check  their  folly  and 
presumption,  make  them  feel  their  dependence,  and  frustrate 
their  endeavors ;  it  may,  supposing  these  agents  to  have  a  will 
of  their  own,  incline  that  will  to  act  conformably  to  their  duty, 
by  making  that  duty  appear  easy  and  agreeable,  by  removing 
obstacles  and  terrors,  and  placing  attractive  objects  in  their 
way ;  or,  if  the  will  be  stubborn,  it  may  make  it  feel  the  ill 
consequences  of  that  stubbornness,  and  it  may  contrive  that 
its  perverseness  shall  defeat  its  own  purpose,  and  forward 
some  other  purpose  which  is  kind  and  beneficial ;  it  may  make 
the  misconduct  of  one  instrumental  to  his  own  correction,  or 
to  the  improvement  and  fidelity  of  the  rest,  by  showing,  in  or- 
dinary cases  of  disobedience,  the  evils  he  brings  upon  himself, 
or,  in  cases  of  extreme  depravity,  the  utter  abandonment  and 
ruin  to  which  the  delinquent  is  left." 

He  proceeds  to  say :  "  Does  any  part  of  such  a  scheme 
either  detract  from  the  notion  of  a  Supreme  Intelligence  plan- 
ning, governing,  guiding,  and  accomplishing  the  whole ;  or 
can  such  a  conception  in  the  mind  of  man,  of  the  scheme  of 
Divine  Providence,  tend  to  relax  his  energy,  to  discourage  his 
industry,  to  impair  the  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  or 
weaken  the  principle  of  duty  and  obedience  ?" 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  we  can  not  help  feeling,  and  this 

02 


322  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

we  collect  to  be  Dr.  Coplestone's  opinion,  that  as  God  deals 
with  us,  so  in  effect  we  are ;  and  that  nothing  can  be  more  ab- 
surd and  presumptuous  than  to  deduce  the  nature  and  condi- 
tion of  man  from  any  speculation  about  the  attributes  of  God ; 
or  to  begin  with  determining  what  God  is,  in  order  to  decide 
upon  our  predicament  in  his  creation. 

Bishop  Coplestone  says :  "  Now  if  we  consider  how  small  a 
part  of  God's  works,  both  in  extent  and  in  duration,  our  facul- 
ties can  embrace,  and,  further,  how  intimately  and  variously 
connected  all  the  parts  of  those  works  are,  plainly  indicating 
one  scheme,  of  which  the  remotest  parts  have  numerous  and 
complicated  relations  with  each  other,  so  that  much  of  what 
we  see  is  essential  to  what  we  do  not  see,  and  to  suppose  one 
without  the  other  would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms  as  literal, 
though  not  so  palpable,  as  a  circle  with  unequal  radii — when, 
I  say,  all  our  inquiries  into  nature  only  tend  to  impress  upon 
our  minds  this  wonderful  concatenation ;  and  when,  again,  a 
scheme  perfectly  analogous  to  this  has  been  traced  in  the 
moral  world,  insomuch  that  in  the  history  of  mankind  there  is 
no  one  event,  however  trivial,  but  may  have  intimate  and  es- 
sential connections  with  all  other  events,  however  grand  and 
important ;  and  these  connections  may  run  out  into  all  possi- 
ble combinations,  and  multiply  to  all  infinity  ;  when,  I  say, 
we  reflect  on  all  this,  he  must,  indeed,  be  a  rash  and  vain  rea- 
soner  who  does  not  admit  the  probability  that  all  his  own  per- 
plexities arise  from  imperfect  acquaintance  with  the  objects 
of  his  speculation ;  and  that  where  facts  militate  against  his 
reasonings,  some  impossible  condition  was  involved  in  his  own 
expectations,  something  destructive  of  the  very  essence  of  that 
thing  which  was  the  main  object  of  his  thoughts. 

"And  thus  we  may  conclude  with  regard  to  all  questions 
in  which  the  infinite  power  of  God  is  represented  as  being  ir- 
reconcilable with  something  that  either  is,  or  is  alleged  to  be 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE.  323 

— that  unless  an  actual  contradiction  can  be  pointed  out  in 
the  terms  of  the  proposition,  no  difficulties  can  justify  a  denial 
of  its  possibility— and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  many  of  those 
things  which  fill  us  with  difficulty  to  account  for  are  necessary 
conditions  to  other  things,  the  existence  of  which  we  assume, 
and  could  not  without  involving  a  contradiction  have  been 
otherwise.  So  that  what  we  first  thought  to  be  impossibilities, 
turn  out  to  be  only  difficulties ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  many 
of  the  difficulties  which  perplex  us  in  the  scheme  of  Providence 
are  such  that  the  removal  of  them,  keeping  other  things  as 
they  are,  would  be  an  impossibility" 

Similarly,  that  amiable  metaphysician,  Abraham  Tucker, 
says  :  "  A  universal  Providence,  disposing  all  events  without 
exception,  leaves  no  room  for  freedom  ;  but  there  is  such  Prov- 
idence, therefore  no  freedom ;  or,  on  the  other  side,  there  is  a 
freedom  of  the  will,  therefore  no  such  Providence.  Thus,  both 
parties  lay  down  the  same  major,  without  which  they  would 
make  no  scruple  to  admit  the  minor  assumed  by  their  antag- 
onist. But  the  most  sober  and  considerate  part  of  mankind, 
induced  by  the  strong  evidences  both  of  freedom  and  Provi- 
dence, have  forborne  to  pronounce  them  incompatible,  the  only 
obstacle  against  the  reception  of  either ;  yet  look  upon  their 
consistency  as  one  of  those  mysteries  which  we  are  forced  to 
admit,  though  we  can  not  explain." 

The  question  has  been  thus  summed  up :  "  It  is  indeed  im- 
possible not  to  feel,  with  Dr.  Coplestone  and  the  author  of 
the  'Analogy,'  that  a  state  of  probation 'is  almost  included 
under  the  idea  of  God's  moral  government  of  the  world,  and 
that  the  notion  of  a  righteous  judgment  hereafter  implies  some 
sort  of  temptation  to  do  what  is  wrong.  Such,  too,  is  the  nat- 
ural government  of  God.  We  find  ourselves  placed  in  a  bal- 
ance between  right  and  wrong,  with  a  power  of  choice,  and  an 
anticipation  of  the  consequences  of  that  choice.  Present  fru« 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


ition  and  succeeding  pain,  present  forbearance  and  conse- 
quent enjoyment,  mark  out  to  us  plainly  a  sort  of  conditional 
covenant  which  God  has  made  with  us  in  respect  to  our  pas- 
sage through  this  temporal  state;  and  that  which  constitutes 
our  trial  in  our  temporal  capacity  does  also  constitute  it  in  our 
religious  capacity :  the  description  of  the  one  .will  be  a  de- 
scription of  the  other,  if  only  what  we  call  temporal  interest 
in  the  one  place  we  call  future  in  another,  and  substitute  vir- 
tue for  prudence  in  speaking  of  the  trial  for  a  future  liie. 
Thus  our  trials  of  difficulties  and  dangers,  in  our  temporal  and 
religious  capacities,  are  evidently  analogous  and  correspond- 
ent. Why  we  are  involved  in  hazards  which  our  Almighty 
Parent  foresees  will  end,  in  some  cases,  in  our  confusion  and 
misery ;  or  why  any  sort  of  danger  or  hazard  should  be  im- 
posed on  mortals ;  why  evil  is  permitted  to  reign  in  the  world ; 
how  all  this  is  to  be  reconciled  with  the  character  of  infinite 
mercy :  these  are  matters  which  Dr.  Coplestone  does  not  pre- 
tend to  tell  us,  but  leaves  them  as  difficulties  of  speculation, 
so  to  remain  till  we  are  furnished  with  higher  degrees  of  in- 
telligence than  it  is  the  lot  of  our  present  nature  to  enjoy.  We 
have  no  business  with  the  speculation  at  all;  we  can  know 
nothing  of  God  but  in  his  relations  to  man,  and  those  relations 
he  practically  points  out,  and  positively  reveals  ;  and  there 
our  inquiries  must  rest,  or  terminate  in  disappointment  and 
confusion." 

We  will  take  one  more  citation — it  shall  be  from  Principal 
Shairp — on  the  practical  bearing  of  the  question  : 

"  To  be  thus  perfectly  single-hearted  and  candid  is,  I  know, 
a  most  difficult  attainment.  Entire  candor  and  honesty  re- 
garding ourselves,  instead  of  being  the  first,  is  one  of  the  last 
and  highest  attainments  of  a  perfectly  fashioned  character. 
But  though  this  is  true,  it  is  also  the  beginning  of  all  well-do- 
ing :  without  some  measure  of  it,  even  though  weak  and  un- 


THEORIES  OF  LIFE.  325 

steady,  no  good  thing  can  begin.  We  must  be  honest  with 
ourselves,  desire  to  know  the  truth  about  ourselves ;  desire, 
however  faintly,  to  be  better  than  we  are,  or  there  is  no  bet- 
tering possible  for  us.  But  if  this  desire  is  in  us,  it  is  the  germ 
out  of  which  all  good  may  come.  The  first  honest  acting  out 
of  this  desire  will  be  to  face  conscience,  as  I  said,  to  walk  ac- 
cording to  the  light  we  have,  to  do  the  immediate  thing  we 
know  to  be  right,  and  then  more  light  will  follow. 

"  We  shall  desire  to  get  beyond  mere  notional  religion,  and 
to  lay  a  living  hold  on  living  truth.  And  the  way  to  do  this 
is  to  take  our  common  thoughts  of  right  and  wrong  into  the 
light  of  God,  and  connect  them  with  him,  and  act  them  out  in 
the  conviction  that  they  come  straight  from  him.  One  of  the 
first  results  of  such  an  effort  to  act  up  to  conscience  will  be 
the  conviction  that  there  is  in  us  something  essentially  wrong 
inwardly,  which,  of  ourselves,  we  are  quite  unable  to  set  right; 
that  to  do  this  is  a  task  to  which  our  own  internal  resources 
are  wholly  inadequate  ;  and  the  more  honestly  the  attempt  is 
made,  the  more  entirely  will  a  man  feel  that  the  powers  of  res- 
toration he  needs  must  lie  out  of  himself,  above  himself.  Of 
such  powers  no  tidings  reach  him  from  any  quarter  of  the  uni- 
verse, save  only  from  the  Revelation  that  is  in  Christ." 


326  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  Philosophy  of  Life. 

IT  is  perfectly  possible  to  construct  a  scheme  of  the  social 
philosophy  of  life.  Something  of  the  nature  of  such  a  plan 
might  be  almost  gathered  from  the  preceding  pages.  Men 
practically  either  adopt  a  religious  theory  or  a  secular  theory 
of  life.  Now,  after  the  theory  has  been  adopted,  there  is  room 
for  a  great  deal  of  tact  in  the  management  of  the  details  of 
human  life.  You  may  make  the  best  of  it  or  you  may  make 
the  worst  of  it ;  or  you  may,  to  an  indefinite  extent,  spoil  and 
curtail  it.  The  one  great  business  of  human  life  is  attained 
when  the  soul  has  been  led  to  conscious  affiance  in  its  Maker 
through  the  work  of  the  Redeemer.  But  the  business  of  life 
is  not  concluded  then.  Any  school  of  religion  that  can  so  re- 
gard life  is  essentially  defective.  Rather,  it  is  only  just  be- 
gun. The  goal  is  reached  that  shall  be  our  starting-point.  In 
ordinary  theological  language  it  is  said  that  henceforth  the 
life  of  the  believer  must  be  one  of  holiness,  that  he  must  grow 
in  grace  and  in  knowledge,  and  that  he  lives  now  that  his  life 
may  be  a  process  of  sanctification  to  his  spirit.  That  also 
must  be  accepted  as  substantial  truth.  But  there  is  a  further 
truth  beyond  this  that  must  be  accepted  and  explained,  and 
the  want  of  it  has  been  the  cause  of  much  narrowness  and  in- 
tolerance. God  has  placed  us  on  this  earth,  and  amid  the  re- 
lationships of  life,  in  order  that  we  may  grow  in  the  love  and 
knowledge  of  his  works  as  of  himself,  and  also  of  man,  his 
greatest  and  dearest  work  of  all. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE. 


327 


Thus  every  province  of  knowledge  may  become  informed 
with  a  religious  motive,  and  be  made  subsidiary  to  divine  life. 
The  two  hemispheres  of  knowledge  are  those  which  relate  to 
nature  and  to  man.  In  studying  nature  we  obtain  glimpses 
of  the  Divine  Mind.  Each  fact  is  part  of  the  divine  order. 
If  the  Almighty  has  been  pleased  to  exhibit  his  exquisite  skill 
and  wisdom  in  the  construction  of  organic  forms,  it  may  be 
reverently  said  that  in  the  investigation  and  reconstruction  of 
such  forms  we  are  walking  in  his  steps.  If  we  believe  that  in 
history  or  in  contemporary  life  we  see  the  development  of  his 
moral  laws  and  the  superintendence  of  his  providence,  the  ob- 
servation and  investigation  of  such  history  is  an  intellectual 
pursuit  which  becomes  glorified  in  the  light  of  religion.  The 
acquisition  of  intellectual  truth  becomes  part  of  religious  duty. 

"  The  plan  of  life !"  says  an  illustrious  French  writer — "  here 
is  the  great  fact !  the  greatest  of  all ! 

"  Who  can  thoroughly  understand  all  that  it  means,  and  all 
that  it  could  put  into  existence,  were  it  lived  as  it  ought  to  be 
lived  ?  Certain  it  is  that  life  is  a  serious  thing,  that  should  be 
governed  neither  by  caprice  nor  thrown  away  on  chance. 

"  Life  is  long,  and  in  its  many  succeeding  ages  and  phases 
brings  in  its  train  many  duties,  and  with  the  duties  the  highest 
responsibilities. 

"  Life  is  often  rugged ;  it  is  not  always  young  and  joyous. 
Soon  come  trials,  struggles,  labors,  and  contrarieties  of  every 
kind.  These  are  the  real  foundations  of  life.  Amusement 
and  pleasure  are  never  more  than  the  brilliant  and  deceitful 
surface. 

"  During  the  inexperience  of  youth  life  flies  gaily  on  like  a 
pleasant  adventure,  without  care,  without  any  foresight,  with- 
out any  plan.  This  we  understand,  deplore." 

There  are  few  books  more  interesting  and  important  in  this 
respect  than  the  wise  writings  of  the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  Mgr. 


328  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

Dupanloup.  His  book,  "  La  Femme  studieuse,"  might  almost 
equally  suit  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen.  He  has  a  keen  eye 
for  the  frivolities  of  society,  for  the  indolence,  stupidity,  and 
mistakes  of  average  life,  and,  above  all,  he  has  a  decided  spe- 
cialty for  the  weaknesses  of  the  unoccupied  female  mind. 
"  La  vie !  elle  n'est  un  jeu  ni  une  fiction  pour  personne ; 
et  c'est  vous  surtout,  femmes  du  monde,  qui  apprenez  cela 
vite  par  vos  mecomptes  et  vos  douleurs !  Mais  croyez-en 
mon  experience :  une  vie  bien  gouverne'e,  un  temps  utilement 
employe,  previendrait  bien  des  tristesses,  ou  aiderait  a  les  sup- 
porter." He  quotes  Madame  Swetchine's  remark,  "  que  la 
pie'te'  seule  ne  me  suffit  pas,  s'il  ne  s'y  joint  le  rayon  lumineux 
d'intelligence."  The  bishop  holds  that  the  education  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  " r'eflechir, comparer, raisonner  juste"  more 
truly  attained  the  aim  of  education  than  can  be  found  in  mod- 
ern education.  He  makes  a  noble  plea  for  the  intellectual 
culture  of  women.  He  forcibly  insists,  in  the  first  place,  that 
a  woman  should  perform  all  her  ordinary  duties — and  he  might 
have  added  that  some  of  these  duties,  such  as  cookery,  have 
an  intellectual  character— but  that  when  she  has  done  her 
best  for  her  husband,  her  children,  and  her  family,  when  she 
has  wisely  attended  to  her  household  accounts  and  all  the  de- 
tails of  domestic  management,  she  has  then  leisure  hours 
which  she  should  employ  in  study  and  literature.  He  echoes 
Fdnelon's  old-fashioned  advice,  which  is  not  so  inappropriate 
as  might  be  thought — that  in  the  first  place  they  should  learn 
to  read  and  write  correctly.  He  says  that  if  Moliere  had  lived 
longer  he  would  have  regretted  having  attacked  des precieuses, 
des  femmes  savantes,  when  he  contrasted  them  with  the  kind  of 
women  turned  out  by  a  later  generation.  It  is  very  urgent 
on  women  to  be  careful  what  they  read :  "  I  ask  all  Christian 
women  to  disdain  in  their  reading  whatever  is  crude  and  me- 
diocre, and  to  read  nothing  in  their  leisure  hours  but  the  best 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE. 


329 


books.  I  ask  them  above  every  thing  to  repel  far  from  them 
whatever  is  evil  and  pernicious.  Conscience  itself  makes  it 
an  imperious  duty  not  to  touch  any  unhealthy  book,  by  which 
they  would  lose  their  delicacy  of  spirit  or  purity  of  soul. 
Through  their  vivacity  of  animation  and  intelligence,  strong 
reading  will,  with  astonishing  ease,  develop  virtues,  or  the  con- 
verse lead  to  inevitable  and  lamentable  weaknesses."  The 
good  bishop  gives  a  list  of  books,  which  might,  perhaps,  be 
enlarged,  which  is  well  worthy  of  consultation.  He  goes  care- 
fully into  detail,  and  thinks  that  ladies  may  claim  some  fresh 
morning  hours  before  lunch  peculiarly  their  own.  "  L'usage 
accorde  ge'ne'ralement  aux  femmes  le  libre  emploi  de  leurs 
matine'es,  c'est-a-dire  des  heures  qui  s'ecoulent  depuis  leur  le- 
ver jusqu'au  dejeuner,  lequel  il  convient,  afin  de  se  laisser  plus 
de  temps,  de  renvoyer  assez  tard,  a  onze  heures  au  plus  tot,  si 
cela  depend  d'elles.  Elles  ne  sont  pas  tenues  de  paraitre  au 
salon  k  ces  premiers  moments  de  la  journe'e ;  elles  doivent 
done  garder  soigneusement  cette  liberte',  et  la  consacrer  au 
travail  serieux,  re'servant  la  simple  lecture,  le  dessin,  la  mu- 
sique,  la  correspondance,  pour  les  heures  de  Papres-midi.  Le 
matin  done,  apres  les  exercices  pieux,  qu'il  ne  faut  jamais 
omettre,  apres  un  coup  d'ceil  attentif  donne'  au  manage,  aux 
enfants,  a  la  maison,  a  toutes  ces  choses  qui  sont  facilement 
re'gle'es,  si  la  veille  elles  ont  eti  pr'evues  et  ordonnees:  ce  qu'il 
faut,  c'est  de  se  manager  quelques  heures,  deux  ou  trois,  s'il  est 
possible,  pour  son  travail  a  soi,  ses  e'tudes  favorites,  et  une  fois 
ces  heures  fixe'es,  y  tenir  fortement.  Sinon,  sans  cesser,  se 
pre'sentera  un  pre'texte  ou  un  autre  pour  les  entamer  et  les 
sacrifier.  Je  1'ai  dit  pour  les  hommes,  et  je  le  redis  ici:  toute 
femme  qui  ne  se  mdnagera  pas  le  matin  ces  quelques  heures 
sacre'es,  se  laissera  ne'cessairement  envahir,  distraire,  e'parpil- 
ler,  et  elle  ne  fera  jamais  rien." 

Much  the  same  thing  may  be  said  about  the  leading  serious 


330 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


practical  aims  of  life.  At  the  outset  there  seems  a  very  prod- 
igality of  life.  We  aim  at  so  many  things  that  the  sum  of 
them  is  infinitely  beyond  the  scope  of  the  threescore  years 
and  ten,  even  if  such  are  granted  to  us.  Most  men  of  letters 
have  had  ideas,  or  have  even  sketched  out  plans  of  writing 
and  study  which  would  last  them  three  times  the  length  of  a 
lifetime.  All  men  of  any  education  know  that  there  are  at 
least  some  half-dozen  objects  on  which  they  might  concentrate 
their  powers,  which  would  profitably  exercise  heart  and  mind 
or  any  special  gifts.  But  it  becomes  necessary  for  them  to 
make  an  election.  If  there  is  any  solidity  of  character,  they 
will  desire  to  make  some  especial  vocation  their  own.  They 
will  desire  to  intermeddle  with  all  knowledge,  but  on  that 
golden  circlet  of  their  sympathies  and  tastes  there  must  be 
worn  the  fixed  jewel  of  their  especial  gift  and  calling.  They 
will  carefully  choose  this  lot  in  life.  In  a  large  degree  it  will 
be  decided  by  the  antecedents  of  connection  and  education, 
and  also  upon  a  large,  deliberate  survey  of  the  field  of  human 
life  and  endeavor.  And  when  the  choice  has  been  made,  it 
will  be  persevered  in  until  the  signal  of  retreat  or  retirement 
is  given,  with  a  steadfast  view  to  the  development  of  one's 
own  character  and  powers,  the  good  of  man,  and  the  glory  of 
God.  This  will  quicken  a  man  in  his  business,  and  make  him 
do  his  work  with  all  his  might.  It  is  true  that  it  will  add  a 
more  solemn  tinge  to  life,  but  it  will  also  give  a  brighter  aspect 
to  death.  It  opens  a  bright  and  ever  broadening  horizon, 
flushed  with  unutterable  brightness,  and  radiant  with  glorious 
forms. 

Taking  a  retrospect  of  life,  we  perceive  that  the  whole  dif- 
ference lies  between  fruitful  and  unfruitful  lives.  Not  those 
who  have  little  to  do,  who  may  imagine  themselves  exempted 
by  affluence  from  work,  but  those  whose  energies  are  fully 
taxed  may  have  the  brightest  hopes  of  harvest.  The  finer- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE. 


331 


tempered  natures  feel  the  tacit  appeal  which  ease  of  circum- 
stances makes  to  their  sense  of  generosity  and  duty ;  and  in 
England,  perhaps,  none  work  harder  than  those  who,  from  a 
secular  point  of  view,  have  no  need  to  work  at  all.  It  makes 
very  little  difference  what  part  we  play  in  life,  but  it  makes  all 
the  difference  how  the  part  is  played.  In  a  drama,  few  ask 
who  played  the  king  or  who  the  peasant;  the  inquiry  is,  who 
played  the  part,  though  lowliest,  the  best. 

The  great  demand  on  each  human  life  is  for  fruit.  The 
whole  earth,  with  its  exquisite  balance  and  proportion  of  laws, 
is  constructed  for  the  production  of  fruit.  The  great  philos- 
ophy of  our  age,  so  crowned  with  magnificent  results,  is  the 
philosophy  of  fruit.  However  valuable  an  element  the  beauty 
of  a  thing  may  be,  yet  fruitfulness  and  use  are  the  great  ob- 
jects whose  attainment  is  sought.  The  difference  between 
one  life  and  another  in  this  respect  is  often  absolutely  im- 
measurable in  degree.  In  the  case  of  most  people,  few  are 
those  who  consider  themselves  bound  by  the  teaching  of 
Christianity.  Most  men  perform  their  modest  percentage  of 
charity  with  that  comfortable  feeling  of  prudence  and  security 
with  which  men  may  pay  their  five  pounds  a  year  to  cover  some 
five  thousand  pounds'  worth  of  property.  The  analogy,  how- 
ever, fails  in  one  most  important  particular.  The  chance  is 
only  very  remote  that  a  man's  house  will  be  destroyed;  but 
it  is  an  absolute  certainty  that  the  mortal  house  of  this  taber- 
nacle will  be  taken  down,  and  no  system  of  insurance  would 
provide  against  the  risk.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  there 
are  men  who  have  deliberately  ignored  the  existence  of  any 
supernatural  element  in  life,  but  the  phenomenon  is  odd 
enough  among  people  who  profess  to  adjust  their  manage- 
ment of  life  on  a  religious  basis. 

There  is  no  doubt,  then,  that  life  may  be  made,  if  not  ex- 
actly joyous,  at  least  exceedingly  comfortable,  to  those  who  do 


332  TURNING-POINTS   IN  LIFE. 

not  expect  much  from  it,  and  at  the  same  time  get  all  they 
can.  There  is  an  art  of  life — an  ars  vivendi — in  avoiding  the 
rough  corners,  in  keeping  clear  of  misery  and  sorrow,  in  eating 
and  drinking  luxuriously  within  the  limits  which  do  not  injure 
health,  in  steeling  the  mind  against  emotion,  which  has  been 
brought  to  its  highest  perfection  amid  the  civilization  of  our 
nineteenth  century.  Yet  it  is  easy  to  see,  even  on  mere  intel- 
lectual grounds,  how  in  gaining  these  lower  ends  some  higher 
ends  are  sacrificed.  "Grief,"  says  Schubert,  "sharpens  the 
understanding  and  strengthens  the  soul,  whereas  joy  seldom 
troubles  itself  about  the  former,  and  makes  the  latter  either 
effeminate  or  frivolous."  A  class  that  venerates  mere  comfort 
must  be  sordid  and  low-minded.  It  is  no  part  of  our  philos- 
ophy to  deprecate  the  comforts,  conveniences,  and  pleasures 
of  life.  But  a  wise  man  will  take  them  at  their  worth,  will  use 
them  without  using  them  to  the  full,  and  remember  the  uncer- 
tainty of  the  tenure  by  which  they  are  held.  He  will  enter 
into  the  meaning  of  one  who  spoke  of  knowing  how  to  want 
and  to  be  full,  how  to  abound  and  to  suffer  need.  There  is  a 
forcible  Yorkshire  saying  about  men  who  do  not  know  how  to 
"  carry  corn,"  that  is,  how  to  bear  prosperity.  I  believe  as 
much  happiness  and  prosperity  are  given  to  Christian  men  as 
they  are  able  to  bear.  It  is  withdrawn  when  they  abuse  it, 
and  is  not  given  where  it  might  be  abused.  I  am  speaking 
of  those  who  look  upon  life  as  in  a  sense  ordered  for  them, 
and  view  existence  in  relation  to  a  future  existence.  As  for 
those  whose  horizon  is  limited  entirely  to  this  life,  they  are 
doubtless  permitted  to  get  the  most  of  it,  seeing  that  they 
voluntarily  abdicate  their  best  chances  of  the  next. 

Those  who  are  wiser,  and  who  are  content  to  take  the  sharp 
lessons  of  the  school  of  adversity,  will  find  their  happiness 
therein.  Certainly  adversity  is  not  joyous,  but  grievous ;  but 
it  yieldeth  the  peaceable  fruits  of  righteousness  to  them  that 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE. 


333 


are  exercised  thereby.  There  is  something  very  significant 
in  the  use  of  this  word  exercised.  It  implies  that  the  affliction 
should  be  continuous,  and  not  momentary.  Directly  any  care 
or  sorrow  happens  to  us,  it  is  the  passionate  desire  of  the 
heart,  it  is  the  earnest  prayer  of  the  mind,  that  the  affliction 
should  be  removed  at  once.  Let  but  this  sharp  stroke  be  re- 
moved, let  this  keen  suspense,  this  bitter  remorse  pass  away. 
But  this  is  not  the  divine  plan.  We  have  to  be  exercised 
thereby.  There  is  a  work  to  be  done,  and  it  has  to  be  done 
thoroughly.  The  ground  has  to  be  broken  up,  and  harrowed 
and  furrowed,  and  this  work,  as  all  great  work,  has  to  be  done 
gradually.  The  stake  in  the  flesh  is  not  removed  ;  the  destiny 
of  life  is  not  altered.  Compensation  may  arise  to  restore  the 
balance  ;  strength  is  given  to  sustain  the  burden.  But  we  are 
to  be  exercised  by  the  trouble.  It  has  to  seek  and  search 
each  nook  and  cranny  of  our  characters.  It  is,  to  use  a  med- 
ical expression,  to  precipitate,  to  bring  to  the  surface  that  men- 
tal or  spiritual  disease  which  may  be  poisoning  our  being.  It 
is  a  wonderful  thing  how  the  long  discipline  of  life  gradually 
accomplishes  its  mission.  The  ground  is  prepared,  and  the 
rains  and  the  sunshine  visit  it ;  the  seed  grows  secretly.  It  is 
often  difficult  to  see  in  what  way  any  special  discipline  of  life 
is  related  to  the  effect  which  the  discipline  is  intended  to 
produce.  But  somehow,  as  the  time  wears  on,  we  see  that 
great  results  have  been  achieved.  We  perceive  that  some 
crisis  of  spiritual  life,  which  is  the  truest  crisis  of  the  life  of 
all,  has  been  safely  tided  over.  Somehow  the  life  is  not  al- 
lowed to  drain  away  into  the  morass  of  worldliness,  but  is 
somehow  lifted  up  into  clearer  light  and  to  the  serene  heavens. 
To  the  soul  that  can  rest  on  what  is  infinitely  higher  than  it- 
self, that  can  rise  above  the  cares  and  sorrows  of  human  life, 
and  rest  with  faith  and  assurance  upon  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
life  must  be  disarmed  of  its  cares  and  terrors.  They  are  not 


334  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

afraid  of  evil  tidings.  They  look  upon  the  fortuitous  as  some- 
thing that,  at  least,  can  not  harm  them,  as  embracing  nothing 
that  is  not  ordained,  or  permitted  by  the  providence  of  God. 
As  Jeremy  Taylor  says :  "We  are  in  the  world  like  men  play- 
ing at  tables :  the  choice  is  not  in  our  power,  but  to  play  it  is ; 
and  when  it  is  fallen,  we  must  manage  it  as  we  can,  and  let 
nothing  trouble  us ;  but  when  we  do  a  base  action,  or  speak 
like  a  fool,  or  think  wickedly — these  things  God  hath  put 
into  our  powers ;  but  concerning  those  things  which  are 
wholly  in  the  choice  of  another,  they  can  not  fall  under  our 
deliberation,  and,  therefore,  neither  are  they  fit  for  our  pas- 
sions." And  as  he  again  says  :  "  Let  us  choose  God,  and  let 
God  choose  for  us."  And  so  in  our  Collect,  we  pray,  "that 
among  all  the  changes  and  chances  of  this  mortal  life  our 
hearts  may  there  be  fixed  where  alone  true  joys  are  to  be 
found." 

That  our  nature  should  instinctively  desire  a  future  life  is 
in  itself  no  mean  proof  that  there  is  a  future  life  in  store  for 
us.  This  is  the  argument  for  immortality  drawn  from  the  con- 
stitution of  man.  The  present  faculties  which  we  possess,  the 
emotions,  intelligence,  will,  of  the  human  soul,  seem  to  argue 
that  these  faculties  shall  have  a  full  scope  hereafter.  The 
love  of  truth  now  will  be  the  love  of  truth  evermore.  Those 
who  love  and  those  who  know  will  be  ever  as  the  angels  that 
know  and  the  angels  that  burn.  We  may  believe  that  the 
mental  and  the  moral  habits  of  this  life  adumbrate  in  some 
kind  of  way  the  faculties  of  a  future  life.  The  habit  of  thought- 
fulness,  of  exact  observation,  of  the  wise  employment  of  time, 
of  feeling  and  affection,  will,  under  altered  conditions,  as  we 
may  well  believe,  continue  with  us  hereafter.  Possibly  the 
wider  and  ampler  a  man's  experience  may  be  in  this  world, 
the  richer  and  more  varied  the  fruitage  in  another  state  of 
existence. 


THE  DISCIPLINE   OF  LIFE.  335 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

That  Life  is  a  School  of  Faculties  to  be  Trained. 

So,  after  glancing  at  so  many  departments  of  human  life, 
we  come  back  to  that  thought  that  underlies  so  many  of  our 
sketches,  as  to  what  is  the  value  and  the  meaning  of  life.  We 
have  seen  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  theory  of  human  life 
to  be  established,  and  a  certain  philosophy  in  ordering  it  in 
all  its  details  in  accordance  with  the  theory.  There  is  some- 
thing to  be  added  supplemental  to  these  considerations,  the 
view  that  flows  naturally  from  what  we  have  said  :  That  life 
is  a  school  of  faculties  to  be  trained.  It  is  such  a  thought  as 
this  which  is  full  of  comfort  and  meaning,  which  gives  some 
kind  of  coherency  to  the  multitudinous  details  of  life,  impart- 
ing simplicity  to  what  is  complex,  and  unity  to  what  is  mani- 
fold. If  there  were  not  some  such  thought  as  this,  there 
would  be  an  insufferable  weariness  and  satiety  in  human  life. 
I  have  heard  of  the  case  of  a  man  who  committed  suicide,  and 
left  in  a  letter  his  reason  for  the  act  that  he  was  perfectly  tired 
of  dressing  and  undressing  day  after  day.  There  was  a  great 
surgeon  who  made  his  fortune  and  retired  to  a  beautiful  estate 
which  he  had  purchased.  As  he  looked  upon  his  glorious 
trees,  he  murmured  that  one  day  he  would  assuredly  hang 
himself  from  the  branches  of  one  of  them.  There  was  a  great 
duke  who  had  the  most  charming  of  villas  on  the  shore  of  the 
Thames.  As  he  looked  on  the  living  stream  brimming  the 
green  turf,  he  could  only  say,  "Oh!  that  wearisome  river,  will 
it  never  cease  flowing  ?" 

Without  indorsing  any  of  those  views  which  one  might  call 


336  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

anthropomorphic  respecting  a  future  state,  I  might  venture 
to  put  broadly  the  propositions  that  the  things  of  this  world 
are  closely  related  to  the  things  that  shall  be  hereafter;  that 
the  other  world  finds  us  much  as  this  world  leaves  us;  that 
the  stock  of  experience,  knowledge,  and  ideas  which  we  ac- 
cumulate here  has  a  direct  connection  with  that  knowledge 
upon  knowledge,  that  glory  upon  glory,  to  which  we  look  here- 
after. Ordinarily  a  Christian  man  comprehends  the  sphere  of 
duty  and  belief;  he  understands  and  discharges  what  he  calls 
his  religious  duties.  Perhaps  he  is  able  to  take  a  wide  and 
wise  view  of  his  duties,  and  to  see  that  his  religion  ought  to 
have  an  hourly  influence  upon  the  details  of  his  life.  But  he 
might  advance  a  stage  beyond  that,  and  see  that  there  is  a 
divine  meaning,  a  divine  training,  even  in  the  most  secular 
and  trivial  of  his  daily  engagements.  Of  course,  much  more 
is  this  apparent  in  those  higher  aspects  of  human  life  which 
of  themselves  assert  their  solemn  meaning.  In  a  vast  number 
of  instances  a  man  leaves  human  life  exactly  at  the  time  when 
he  might  consider  himself  best  fitted  to  make  the  most  of  it. 
Often  it  is,  when  a  man  has  accumulated  his  greatest  experi- 
ence, when  passion  and  prejudice  have  passed  away,  when 
character  is  exalted  and  refined,  when  splendid  possibilities 
appear  within  the  grasp,  that  some  casual  incident,  a  mere 
stumbling  footfall,  or  chance  infection,  or  some  mechanical 
derangement  of  our  marvelous  organization,  superinduces 
death.  We  undertake  to  say,  as  death  approaches  more 
nearly,  the  soul  seems  more  vehemently  to  assert  its  energies, 
and  all  spiritual  faculties  appear  keener,  fresher,  and  brighter. 
And  so  we  can  easily  understand  how  one  poet  looks  forward 
to  a  higher  destiny  beyond  life  for  the  loved,  lost  friend  of  his 
youth,  and  believes 

"  Whate'er  thy  hands  are  set  to  do, 
Is  wrought  with  tumult  of  acclaim." 


THE  DISCIPLINE   OF  LIFE. 


337 


Very  often  amid  the  discipline  and  cares  of  life  it  becomes 
the  impatient  desire  of  the  soul  to  be  relieved  from  the  strug- 
gle, and  the  mind's  eye  dwells  on  imaged  scenes  of  quietude 
and  repose.  We  grow  impatient  of  our  burden,  and  we  long 
to  be  rid  of  it.  But  if  we  consider  human  life  to  be  a  disci- 
pline and  a  school  of  our  faculties,  we  shall  not  dare  to  avoid 
the  lessons  or  to  abridge  the  time  that  is  granted  us  for  learn- 
ing them.  There  is  a  drill  of  our  faculties,  painful,  monoto- 
nous, and  perpetual,  which  nevertheless  is  necessary  in  making 
us  good  soldiers  and  servants.  It  is  only  practice  that  makes 
perfect.  Every  one  who  has  attended  to  the  culture  of  the 
moral  nature  knows  what  repeated  efforts  are  necessary  to 
extirpate  the  evil  instincts  and  tendencies  of  our  nature,  and 
to  implant  the  habits  which  are  for  the  health  of  mind  and 
body.  We  are  told  of  afflictions,  that  they  yield  the  peaceable 
fruits  of  righteousness  to  them  that  are  exercised  thereby.  Now 
most  of-us,  as  we  have  before  said,  when  we  feel  the  slightest 
touch  of  affliction,  immediately  make  it  the  most  earnest  de- 
sire that  we  may  be  relieved  from  it  altogether.  But  this  re- 
lief, we  have  seen,  would  exclude  the  notion  of  a  man's  being 
fxerdsed  by  his  trouble.  Life  is  the  development  of  man's 
intellectual  nature.  That  is  too  limited  a  definition  by  far. 
That  object  might  be  defined  as  the  balanced,  harmonious  de- 
velopment of  all  the  various  factors  of  man's  nature.  It 
would  include  the  growth  of  natural  feeling  in  the  various  re- 
lationships of  life.  It  would  imply  some  experience  in  the 
conflicts,  sorrows,  and  repentances  of  the  soul.  It  would  in- 
dicate the  exercise  of  a  skilled  and  disciplined  moral  sense. 
That  would  indeed  be  a  dwarfed  and  stunted  nature  that  is 
developed  on  the  intellectual  side  alone  to  the  cost  of  the  feel- 
ing and  the  conscience.  There  is  greater  equality  probably 
than  we  imagine  in  human  life.  Those  who  are  stationary  or 

P 


338  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

slow  in  mental  growth  may  receive  an  ample  compensation  in 
the  advancement  of  other  faculties. 

We  believe,  then,  that  the  world  is  one  great  school  in  which 
the  scholars  of  time  learn  lessons  for  eternity.  Mr.  Thack- 
eray, in  one  of  the  happiest  and  most  pathetic  of  his  touches, 
makes  Thomas  Newcome  in  his  last  wanderings  recall  his 
Carthusian  days,  and  answer,  "  Adsum,"  as  he  stood  in  the 
presence  of  The  Master.  Mr.  Kingsley  says  that  the  great  re- 
ward of  having  done  work  well  is  having  more  work  to  do ; 
"  this  is  the  true  and  heroical  rest  which  only  is  worthy  of 
gentlemen  and  sons  of  God."  The  laureate,  in  his  poem  of 
"  Wages,"  asks  for  Virtue,  "  Give  her  the  glory  of  going  on 
and  not  to  die."  This  is  simply  the  human  imaginative  way 
of  putting  the  divine  truth  that  those  who  have  wrought  well 
here  shall  be  the  possessors  of  many  talents,  and  the  rulers 
over  many  cities.  It  implies  that  work  done  here  bears  a 
relation  to  more  glorious  work  hereafter,  and  that  all  the 
powers  of  the  soul  will  find  limitless  scope  in  the  aeons  of  eter- 
nity. 

Such  an  estimate  surely  lends  an  ennobling  and  attractive 
aspect  to  human  life.  It  transfigures  and  glorifies  the  whole 
course  of  it.  It  lends  "  the  consecration  and  the  poet's  dream" 
to  the  hard,  dry  facts  of  human  life.  The  merchant,  amid  the 
multiplicity  of  his  engagements  and  avocations,  may  think 
that  he  is  forming  and  disciplining  some  special  faculty  which 
it  has  been  given  him  to  cultivate,  and  which  may  be  devel- 
oped hereafter.  The  humblest  laborer  who  tills  the  soil  may, 
in  the  same  way,  cultivate  the  garden  of  his  own  soul,  and  may 
believe  that  he  is  sowing  seed  that  will  yield  fruit  a  hundred- 
fold. Such  a  theory  shows  that,  not  in  retirement  and  separa- 
tion from  the  world,  but  in  the  energies  and  activities  of  life 
are  the  true  means  of  man's  highest  culture  to  be  found.  It 
will  not  deprive  life  of  its  happiness  or  its  innocent  gayety,  but 


THE  DISCIPLINE   OF  LIFE. 


339 


will  rather  give  the  settled  sunshine  of  a  heart  which  is  firmly 
based  on  that  serene,  deep  love.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  ex- 
pression of  the  belief  that  human  gifts  and  faculties,  here 
vouchsafed,  are  the  embryo  and  blossom  of  what  shall  be  fully 
developed  hereafter.  We  may,  perhaps,  believe  this  of  great 
men  and  even  of  men  in  the  great  occasions  of  their  lives. 
But  the  same  truth  belongs  to  the  most  ordinary  details  of  the 
most  commonplace  life.  Take  the  common  trials,  struggles, 
efforts,  checks,  disappointments  of  human  existence.  At  first 
sight  they  are  so  very  small  that  they  seem  even  contempti- 
ble, yet  we  own  their  power  to  disturb  serenity  and  even  to 
embitter  life.  They  shape  and  train  and  develop  the  soul. 
Take  such  a  text  as  this,  "  God  is  strong  and  patient,  and  God 
is  provoked  every  day."  Now  we  believe  that  it  is  the  object 
of  religion  to  renew  in  us  the  faded  image  of  God,  and  to  make 
us  "perfect,  as  our  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect."  According 
to  our  nature  we  have  to  learn  to  be  strong  and  patient,  and 
to  bear  provocations.  And  this  training  of  life,  in  its  care 
and  worry  and  multitudinous  details,  is  probably  that  very 
training  which  will  make  us  strong  and  patient,  and  tolerant 
of  evil  and  provocation.  These  are  divine  elements,  which, 
doubtless,  maybe  essential  toward  the  happiness  of  future  life, 
and  may  be  seeds  which  shall  germinate  in  immortal  fruits. 

Perhaps,  however,  there  is  a  very  large  portion  of  humanity 
to  whom  such  considerations  hardly  apply.  It  may  be  said 
generally,  that  while  some  men  act  from  sense,  others  act  from 
feeling.  I  can  not  but  think,  also,  that  the  emotions  are  di- 
vinely given  to  men  as  guides  of  action.  Those  who  have 
not  the  skill  to  weave  a  chain  of  argument  may  yet  be  able, 
by  the  sure  instinct  of  cultivated  feeling,  to  arrive  at  a  correct 
conclusion.  This  is  pre-eminently  the  case  with  woman,  whose 
instinctive  feeling  flies  straight  to  the  point  which  reason  only 
reaches  by  a  circuitous  process.  It  is  true  that  feeling  may 


340  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

often  lead  us  astray,  but  perhaps  not  oftener  than  defective 
reasoning  conducts  us  into  equal  blunders. 

But  there  is  a  kind  of  social  philosophy  that  applies  to  us 
all  alike.  This  is  the  vivre  savoir  in  its  true  sense,  the  ars 
vivcndi,  the  art  of  life,  the  making  the  most  of  life.  Men  con- 
struct some  kind  of  philosophy  for  themselves.  They  find  the 
necessity  of  reposing  upon  some  moral  idea  as  the  basis  of 
their  lives,  and  referring  the  details  of  life  to  governing  princi- 
ples. I  think  it  was  Gothe  who  said  that  a  man  ought,  every 
day,  to  read  a  fine  book,  see  a  noble  picture,  and  look  at  a 
beautiful  person.  I  have  no  doubt  but  Gothe,  when  thus 
agreeably  occupied,  felt  pleasure  in  referring  the  details  of 
daily  life  to  the  principle  of  esthetic  culture.  Few  men  care 
to  live  at  random,  and  spend  their  days  without  a  plan. 

The  first  thing  for  all  men  is  to  arrange  the  principles  of 
action,  and  to  form  the  basis  of  life.  When  this  is  attained,  I 
think  there  is  a  never-ending  education  going  on  for  us,  in  the 
way  in  which  we  spend  our  time  wisely  and  happily,  act  right- 
ly in  the  manifold  relationships  of  life,  progress  in  the  harmo- 
nious culture  and  balance  of  life,  attain  to  that  proportion  of 
happiness  which  may  be  best  for  us,  and  share  fully  in  the 
blessings  and  progress  of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

According  to  any  true  scheme  of  social  philosophy,  it  is  first 
of  all  necessary,  while  traveling  through  this  world,  to  have  an 
assured,  good  hope  of  the  future  life.  There  is  a  touching 
proverbial  expression  about  a  warm  nest  on  a  rotten  bough. 
It  is  frequently  applied  to  men  of  life  incomes,  to  the  clergy- 
man or  officer  whose  benefice  or  annuity  fails  with  him.  The 
broken  bough  is  suddenly  precipitated  upon  the  ground,  the 
nest  is  despoiled,  and  the  younglings  scattered.  But  the  im- 
age holds  good  for  a  much  larger  proportion  of  human  life 
than  might  be  expected.  Any  man  who  lives  careless  and  at 
ease  in  his  possessions  might  find  that  suddenly,  perchance  in 


THE  DISCIPLINE   OF  LIFE. 


341 


a  single  night,  for  him  those  possessions  are  gone,  and  his 
soul  is  required  of  him.  Now  there  is  a  way  in  which  making 
the  most  of  both  worlds  may  be  impossible  for  a  man.  This 
world,  though  so  urgent  and  immediate,  is  by  far  the  lesser 
object  as  compared  with  the  next.  It  is  often  —  surely,  we 
should  say,  it  is  invariably  necessary — that  many  sacrifices 
should  be  made  in  insuring  some  great  object.  Now  so  it  is 
in  the  lives  of  Christian  men.  They  are  not  forbidden  to  en- 
joy all  that  which  God  has  given  them  richly  to  enjoy;  but 
their  object  is  to  attain  to  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal 
weight  of  glory.  So  they  consciously  forbid  themselves,  as 
they  find  that  there  is  virtually  forbidden  to  them  much  that 
they  would  desire  to  have.  It  may  even  please  God  to  lay 
upon  them  great  trials,  troubles,  and  deprivations  to  insure 
this  great  object,  just  as  the  soldier  must  undergo  great  hard- 
ships before  he  can  win  the  city,  and  the  statesman  do  hard 
work  before  he  can  attain  to  the  glory  of  power.  Make  up 
the  mind  clearly  as  to  what  is  the  greatest  object  of  all  to  be 
secured,  and  in  comparison  be  content  to  let  every  thing  else 
in  the  world  go  as  soon  as  this  object  is  attained.  No  lot  in 
this  world  will  come  amiss  if  only  life's  great  end  be  achieved. 
At  the  same  time  there  is  an  immense  amount  of  avoidable 
stupidity  and  unhappiness  in  this  world.  There  is  always 
abundant  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  prudence  and  skill 
in  the  planning  out  of  the  arrangements  of  our  daily  life,  and 
its  business  and  occupations.  Some  people  are  absurdly  as- 
cetic, and  miss  much  of  the  happiness  and  the  enjoyment  that 
might  be  theirs.  This  error  is  certainly  not  very  widely  ex- 
tended, and  men  more  generally  fall  into  the  opposite  error. 
Still  there  is  a  frightful  amount  of  self-inflicted  misery  in  the 
world.  The  ages  of  superstition,  of  course,  give  the  most  fla- 
grant examples  of  this,  and  although  we  may  admit  that  noth- 
ing short  of  stern,  high  purpose  could  have  rebuked  the  sur- 


342 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


rounding  wickedness  and  worldliness  in  those  times,  which 
some  people  call  "  the  Dark  Ages,"  and  others  the  "  Ages  of 
Faith,"  yet  such  austerities  have  been  mainly  based  upon  re- 
ligious error.  Our  loving  Father  in  Heaven  wishes  his  chil- 
dren to  be  happy,  to  be  happy  throughout  eternity,  and  to  be 
happy  through  their  earthly  life,  so  far  as  such  happiness  may 
safely  be  vouchsafed  to  them.  It  is  commonly  said  that,  after 
all,  happiness  and  unhappiness  are  very  evenly  distributed. 
This  may  be  true ;  and  yet,  after  all,  it  is  also  true  that  there 
are  many  persons  whose  serene  blue  sky  seems  hardly  marred 
by  a  cloud.  It  may  be  possible  for  us  all  to  attain  peace  and 
sunlight  within  our  own  breasts. 

By  every  man  there  is  work  to  be  done.  The  rule  is  inflex- 
ible. Most  people  are  obliged  to  work  by  the  necessities  of 
their  position ;  and  if  there  are  any  who  seem  absolved  by 
this  necessity,  such  persons  are  really  placed  in  the  van  of 
progress ;  their  work  is,  as  it  were,  really  left  to  their  honor  by 
the  Great  Task-master.  It  is  the  better  for  them  if  they  truly 
work,  it  is  infinitely  the  worse  for  them  if  they  do  not.  For 
work  alone  insures  health,  or  gives  any  true  enjoyment.  With- 
out occupation  the  whole  nature  lags ;  it  makes  no  progress, 
it  attains  no  true  value  or  dignity. 

Nothing  is  more  productive  of  happiness  to  a  man  than  that 
he  should  be  in  harmony  with  his  work,  that  he  should  have 
the  faculty  of  work,  and  be  able  to  feel  that  he  can  do  it 
thoroughly  and  well.  Of  course  it  is  part  of  the  very  idea  of 
work  that  it  should  involve  labor  and  weariness.  A  man 
needs  fully  to  reconcile  his  mind  to  this,  so  that  he  may  work 
on  with  patience  and  perseverance.  There  are  various  help- 
ful considerations  that  might  well  occur  to  him.  To  most 
men  their  very  livelihood  and  subsistence  depend  upon  work  ; 
if  they  will  not  work,  neither  will  they  eat.  But  there  is  a 
higher  than  this  compulsory  ground.  The  worker  feels  that 


THE   DISCIPLINE   OF  LIFE. 


343 


in  his  way  he  is  carrying  on  the  order  of  the  world.  Without 
work  the  world  would  have  been  a  wilderness,  or  into  a  wil- 
derness would  speedily  return.  There  is  no  work  without  its 
use.  I  believe  that  in  the  long  run  every  scrap  of  labor  tells. 
No  labor  is  labor  in  vain.  It  is  a  thought  full  of  incitement 
and  encouragement  that  we  too  are  of  use  in  the  world,  that 
we  are  co-operant  toward  good.  The  consideration  also  arises, 
that  while  we  thus  work  both  for  our  own  subsistence  and  for 
a  moral  end,  our  labor  returns  in  blessings  to  ourselves.  We 
are  adding  to  our  own  culture,  we  are  promoting  our  own  de- 
velopment. Any  man  who  works  benefits  himself,  chiefly  and 
foremost,  beyond  any  one  else.  The  earnest  preacher  who 
preaches  to  others  preaches  most  of  all  to  himself.  The  pub- 
lic writer  who  appears  to  teach  others,  has  chiefly  been  bring- 
ing together  facts  and  ideas  for  himself.  Above  all,  there  is 
the  supreme  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  in  work  we  are  ful- 
filling the  will  of  God.  He  condescends  to  employ  us  as  fel- 
low-laborers with  himself.  He  has  made  work  a  law  to  him- 
self, and  he  has  assigned  it  as  a  law  to  us.  The  highest  title 
which  he  vouchsafes  to  any  man  is  that  of  a  good  and  faithful 
servant.  Such  thoughts  will  never  make  hard  work  other 
than  hard  work ;  but  they  will  save  us  from  lassitude ;  they 
will  cause  perseverance,  cheerfulness,  and  hope.  There  is 
much  social  wisdom  constantly  required.  There  is  the  regu- 
lation of  our  time,  the  adjustment  of  the  hours  of  rest  and  la- 
bor. Then  so  many  questions  occur  of  engagements,  amuse- 
ment', friendship,  acquaintance,  the  rich  and  poor,  reading, 
travel,  society ;  the  whole  of  which  constitutes,  in  point  of 
fact,  a  protracted  kind  of  education.  Then  matters  of  daily 
life  afford  employment  to  the  whole  complex  nature  of  man, 
and  afford  countless  opportunities  of  exercising  the  judgment. 
It  is  so  easy  to  fall  into  error  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the 
left  hand ;  in  point  of  fact  we  commit  numberless  errors,  and 


344 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


it  is  only  by  incessant  practice  in  the  art  of  life  that  we  make 
any  approach  toward  wisdom.  Of  course  a  man  must  have 
fixity  of  purpose  and  resoluteness  of  character.  But  even 
these  degenerate  so  easily  into  weaknesses.  For  instance,  a 
man  lays  down  rules  of  conduct,  and  he  is  wise  in  so  doing. 
But  instead  of  making  his  rules  his  servants,  he  is  often  an 
abject  slave  to  his  inflexible  rules.  All  sorts  of  present  harm 
happen  in  order  that  no  precedent  may  be  set  for  possible 
harm  in  the  future.  Then  a  man  may  work  hard  and  yet 
work  unwisely.  A  man  will  saunter  and  dawdle,  looking  at 
his  work  for  a  long  time  before  he  seriously  takes  it  in  hand, 
and  at  last  finishing  with  a  rush,  in  which  he  has  hardly  been 
able  to  do  himself  justice.  There  is  the  morning  for  the 
morning's  work,  and  the  work  can  not  be  huddled  up  in  the 
uncertain  twilight.  I  think  that  every  body  must  feel  how  im- 
mense is  the  temptation  to  fritter  away  a  morning,  and  how 
keenly  the  lost  morning  is  regretted.  The  post  brings  the  let- 
ters that  are  fraught  with  so  many  interests  and  cares ;  the 
people  call  who  know  that  you  are  sure  to  be  at  home  in  the 
morning;  the  newspapers  come  in,  lately  so  crowded  with 
their  appalling  and  enchaining  narratives.  It  requires  con- 
siderable adroitness  and  determination,  when  you  have  attend- 
ed to  the  more  pressing  demands  which  these  things  present, 
to  grapple  with  the  hardest  points  in  the  best  hours,  and  re- 
serve lighter  employment  for  lighter  hours.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  man  may  be  so  engrossed  with  his  work  that  he  may 
be  unable  to  give  any  attention  to  the  most  important  matters 
that  may  be  suddenly  brought  before  him.  It  is  a  grand  item 
of  the  art  of  life  to  be  able  to  seize  opportunities.  A  man 
should  have  the  insight  to  seize  any  occasion  that  may  pre- 
sent itself. 

There  are  countless  points  of  life  in  which  a  Christian  casu- 
istry must  be  exercised.     It  is  in  the  building  up  of  Christian 


THE  DISCIPLINE   OF  LIFE. 


345 


character  and  conduct  that  our  main  work  will  lie.  The  in- 
flexible rule  is,  that  one  should  adhere  to  Christian  principle. 
Sometimes  the  prudential  maxims  of  the  world  come  into  con- 
flict with  a  higher  Christian  philosophy.  For  instance,  those 
who  hold  the  favorite  theory  that  the  world  is  an  oyster,  which 
they  must  open  for  themselves,  generally  select  all  their  ac- 
quaintance with  a  rigid  view  to  their  utility  to  themselves. 
They  will  not  know  any  one  below  themselves  in  the  social 
scale.  They  will  not  cultivate  any  intimacy  with  a  poor  or 
uninfluential  man  of  their  own  standing.  It  is  nothing  to 
them  that  they  are  told  to  mind  not  high  things,  but  conde- 
scend to  those  of  low  estate.  Similarly  take  the  subject  of 
promises.  Nearly  every  man  has  at  times  made  some  kind 
of  indiscreet  promise.  Some  men,  indeed,  seem  to  make  a 
practice  of  large  promises,  from  the  performance  of  which 
they  exonerate  themselves.  The  habit  of  such  easy  promis- 
ing is  one  of  the  greatest  meanness.  The  promiser  has  the 
gratification  of  at  once  discounting  a  large  amount  of  grati- 
tude :  he  has  the  pleasure  of  giving  pleasure ;  he  creates  at 
the  moment  a  very  warm  feeling  of  appreciation  toward  him- 
self. But  he  incurs  the  responsibility  of  creating  a  legitimate 
expectation  which  he  does  not  satisfy,  and  generally  incurs 
the  contempt  and  indignation  of  the  person  he  has  deluded. 
If  a  man  has  made  an  unwise  promise  on  the  spur  of  the  mo- 
ment, or  in  a  fit  of  thoughtless  generosity,  he  should  redeem  it 
to  the  full  extent  of  his  power.  He  knows  that  if  he  swears 
to  his  neighbor,  he  should  perform  it  although  it  be  to  his  own 
injury.  It  is  perhaps  not  paying  too  high  a  price  if  he  learns 
to  be  more  guarded  and  moderate  in  his  language,  and  to  rise 
superior  to  the  cheap  gratification  of  a  moment.  Again,  all 
insincerity  of  speech  should  be  specially  guarded  against. 
Nothing  is  more  easily  detected,  or  brings  a  readier  return  of 
indifference  and  dislike  than  such  insincerity.  The  words 

P2 


346  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

that  are  duly  weighed  will  always  be  treasured  and  counted  up. 
We  fall  back  more  and  more  on  the  simplicity  of  the  "  yea, 
yea,"  and  "  nay,  nay." 

It  is  so  difficult  in  life  to  strike  the  golden  mean,  and  in 
this  golden  mean  the  true  wisdom  of  life  so  often  consists. 
There  is  the  incentive  to  labor,  and  there  is  the  desire  for 
rest,  and  we  have  to  steer  between  the  two ;  between  giving 
too  much  or  too  little  thought  to  our  worldly  interest ;  between 
shrinking  altogether  from  amusement  and  becoming  too  ad- 
dicted to  it ;  between  shunning  and  courting  society  ;  between 
neglecting  books  for  observation  and  reflection,  or  neglecting 
observation  and  reflection  for  mere  reading,  and  so  on  through 
many  pairs  of  contrasts.  All  this  shows  us  the  extreme  frailty 
and  feebleness  of  man,  his  liability  to  commit  blunders  and  to 
fall.  But  all  this  time  a  kind  of  education  is  going  on  for  and 
in  him.  His  powers  of  volition  are  in  incessant  exercise. 
Again  and  again  he  has  to  make  his  election  between  this 
course  and  that.  By-and-by  this  power  of  choice  is  so  con- 
stantly exercised  that  the  mind  acts  instinctively,  and  the 
right  course  is  taken,  or  at  least  those  cautious  steps  which, 
if  wrong,  may  be  easily  retraced.  When  once  the  habits  of 
scrutiny  into  our  actions,  of  self-examination  of  the  details  of 
our  lives,  of  referring  each  transaction  to  the  principle  in- 
volved, are  distinctly  formed,  then  comes  that  other  habit  of 
decision,  and  decision  according  to  a  right  judgment. 

Innumerable  are  the  little  hints  that  might  be  given  about 
the  practical  details  which  belong  to  the  science  of  life ;  for 
instance,  the  use  of  stray  minutes  in  the  course  of  the  day, 
especially  in  the  bright  morning  hours,  can  be  turned  to  the 
highest  account.  The  Chancellor  D'Aguesseau  said,  "  Here 
are  the  books  that  I  have  composed  during  the  daily  five 
minutes  that  Madame  D'Aguesseau  has  kept  me  waiting  for 
dinner  during  twenty  years."  A  similar  statement  has  been 


THE   DISCIPLINE    OF  LIFE.  347 

made  of  the  composition  of  one  of  the  most  important  theolog- 
ical works  of  the  age.  Then,  again,  the  character  of  the  morn- 
ing's work — and  the  morning  is  the  essence  of  the  day — de- 
pends on  the  character  of  the  evening  before.  If  you  have 
sat  up  very  late,  or  if  you  have  had  a  bad  night,  you  will 
hardly  be  up  to  the  mark  for  the  severe  duties  of  the  day. 
Mere  duties  of  routine  can  be  generally  managed,  even  if  it 
be  with  some  drag  upon  the  mind ;  but  in  intellectual  pur- 
suits a  man  can  hardly  venture  to  do  this :  he  dare  not  injure 
the  quality  of  his  work.  Under  these  circumstances,  a  man 
suits  his  work  to  the  conditions  of  his  mental  and  physical 
health.  If  he  can  not  follow  his  first  line,  he  falls  back  upon 
his  second ;  and  if  he  can  not  follow  his  second  line,  he  falls 
back  upon  his  third.  If  a  man  can  not  compose,  he  can  make 
his  notes  and  abstracts;  and  if  he  can  not  make  notes  and  ab- 
stracts, he  can  go  on  with  his  reading.  It  is  better  to  do  it 
quietly  and  determinately ;  and  a  man  who  tries,  even  under 
unfavorable  circumstances,  adheres  to  the  line  of  duty. 

Sometimes  a  sudden  light  seems  to  break  upon  the  soul. 
The  whole  landscape  of  life  seems  lighted  up.  We  see  clearly 
the  paths  which  we  should  take,  and  the  high  duties  for  which 
we  should  brace  ourselves.  Then  we  impose  upon  ourselves 
the  tasks  that  are  necessary  to  fulfill  our  path  and  destiny  in 
life.  But  this  rare,  fine  light  dies  away.  Indeed,  the  clouds 
soon  gather  where  the  sunshine  had  shone  brightest.  The 
season  of  depression  succeeds  the  season  of  exaltation.  Then 
is  it  that,  like  Wordsworth's  "  Happy  Warrior,"  who 

"  Through  the  heat  of  conflict  keeps  the  law 
In  calmness  made,  and  saw  what  he  foresaw." 

With  which  we  may  compare  Ben  Jonson's  lines : 

"A  valiant  man 

Ought  not  to  undergo  or  tempt  a  danger, 
But  worthily  and  by  selected  ways ; 


348  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

He  undertakes  with  reason,  not  by  chance  ; 

His  valor  is  the  salt  to  his  other  virtues  : 

They  are  all  unseasoned  without  it.     The  waiting-maids, 

Or  the  concomitants  of  it,  are  his  patience, 

His  magnanimity,  his  confidence, 

His  constancy,  security,  and  quiet. 

He  can  assure  himself  against  all  rumor, 

Despairs  of  nothing,  laughs  at  contumelies, 

As  knowing  himself  advanced  in  a  height 

Where  injury  can  not  reach  him,  nor  aspersion 

Touch  him  with  soil." 

To  some  people  there  are  times  when  almost  a  paralysis 
falls  upon  the  powers  of  volition.  The  mind  is  unnerved  for 
decision,  and  incompetent  to  strike  out  independent  lines  of 
action.  In  such  a  time  of  gloom  we  fall  back  upon  the  stead- 
fast resolve  of  a  happier  time.  We  adhere  to  the  lines  we  had 
marked  out  for  ourselves  in  the  happier  moments  when  our 
intellectual  and  spiritual  vision  was  unclouded.  As  Burke 
said,  "  Never  despair ;  and,  if  you  do,  work  in  despair." 

It  is  a  "many-chambered"  school,  that  in  which  God  trains. 
None  are  excluded  from  it ;  all  are  welcome.  It  has  room 
for  all  gifts,  all  circumstances,  all  conditions.  It  makes  allow- 
ance for  defects  and  shortcomings  which  are  ruin  in  this  world. 
Trained  in  this  school  many  have  reached  a  high  place  who 
have  had  no  "tincture  of  letters."  Most  of  us  must  have 
known  some,  especially  in  the  humbler  places  of  society,  who 
had  not  any  of  this  world's  learning,  had  never  heard  even 
the  names  of  the  greatest  poets  and  philosophers,  yet  who, 
without  help  from  these,  had  been  led  by  some  secret  way,  up 
to  the  serenest,  most  beautiful  heights  of  character.  It  is, 
indeed,  a  many-chambered  school.  These  were  led  through 
some  of  its  chambers  to  their  end ;  we  are  being  led  through 
others.  To  those  who,  like  ourselves,  have  large  opportunities 
of  culture  placed  within  their  reach,  these  are  the  instruments 


THE  DISCIPLINE   OF  LIFE. 


349 


of  the  divine  discipline.  It  is  part  of  that  discipline  to  put 
large  opportunities  in  men's  hands,  and  to  leave  it  to  them- 
selves whether  they  will  use  or  neglect  them.  There  shall  be 
no  compulsion  to  make  us  turn  them  to  account.  Occasions 
of  learning  and  self-improvement  come,  stay  with  us  for  a 
while,  then  pass,  and  the  wheels  of  time  shall  not  be  reversed 
to  bring  them  back  once  they  are  gone.  If  we  neglect  them, 
we  shall  be  permanent  losers  for  this  life.  We  can  not  say 
how  much  we  may  be  losers  hereafter.  But  if  we  do  what  we 
can  to  use  them  while  they  are  granted,  we  shall  have  learned 
one  lesson  of  the  heavenly  discipline,  and  shall  be  better  pre- 
pared for  the  others,  whether  of  action  or  endurance,  which 
are  yet  to  come. 


35° 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE, 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Patient  Continuance  in  Well-doing. 

ADHERING  to  the  practical  character  of  these  pages,  let  us 
lastly  inquire  what  principle  may  be  defined  as  the  mainstay 
of  life,  and  which  best  sets  forth  the  raison  d'etre,  the  object 
and  aim  of  existence.  In  that  inspired  language  which  we 
have  learned  to  recognize  and  reverence  as  the  authoritative 
utterances  of  God,  we  are  told  of  those  who  make  it  their  lofty 
aim  to  seek  for  glory,  honor,  and  immortality.  Human  life 
has  its  whole  work  and  meaning  as  connected  with  such  a 
prize  as  that.  The  heart  and  intellect  of  man  can  conceive 
of  nothing  higher.  The  method  and  means  are  defined  to  us 
as  "patient  continuance  in  well-doing."  And  perhaps  it  is 
not  without  a  feeling  of  disappointment  that  we  come  to  the 
examination  and  analysis  of  such  a  phrase.  The  aim  is  so 
splendid  as  contrasted  with  the  plain,  prosaic,  homely  charac- 
ter of  the  means.  It  is  no  sudden  act  of  devotedness,  no 
height  of  faith,  no  deed  of  heroism,  no  great  intellectual  pow- 
er, that  can  achieve  this  object,  but  something  that  almost  im- 
plies repetition  and  monotony,  that  taxes  the  energies,  sub- 
mission, and  endurance  of  a  lifetime,  the  "patient  continuance 
in  well-doing." 

That  homely  virtue  of  patience  is  thus  brought  into  its  full- 
est relief.  There  seems  to  be  two  reasons  why  such  promi- 
nence should  be  given  to  patience  in  the  Christian  scheme. 
The  first  is,  that  it  is  uniform  in  its  requirements ;  the  sec- 
ond, that  it  is  impartial  in  its  application.  Life  may  be  pop- 


PATIENT  CONTINUANCE  IN  WELL-DOING. 


351 


ularly  said  to  be  decided  by  its  turning-point ;  that  turning- 
point  is  the  result  of  an  epoch,  and  its  issue  the  symbol  of  a 
character.  If  any  great  event  in  a  man's  life  is  to  be  settled 
by  his  patience,  that  habit  of  patience  must  be  successfully 
built  up  through  time  and  experience.  And  often  at  a  critical 
moment  the  patience  is  found  to  give  way :  the  habit  has  not 
been  securely  built  up,  and  breaks  down  at  the  application  of 
a  severe  test.  Then,  slowly  and  sorrowfully,  we  have  to  begin 
all  over  again.  We  have  to  seek  the  point  of  departure,  though 
with  dimness  and  weakness.  Patience  is  a  test  that  with  equa- 
ble pressure  applies  to  the  whole  period  of  life.  It  is  the  mor- 
al discipline  which  we  can  never  abdicate  for  an  hour.  It  is 
a  divine  accomplishment  in  which  we  may  be  always  students. 
And  while  patience  is  a  test  designed  to  last  till  the  end  of 
life,  it  is  also  one  that  is  found  always  to  act  with  extreme  im- 
partiality. It  is  one  that  applies  with  perfect  equality  to  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  The  refined  and  the  educated 
and  the  thoughtful  have  advantages  by  this  test  over  those 
who  in  character  and  inclination  are  the  very  opposite.  It 
may  even  be  said  that  patience  is  a  heavier  trial  for  the  more 
refined  and  intellectual  nature  ;  but  then,  again,  such  natures 
are  better  able,  through  long  discipline,  to  sustain  the  trial. 
The  most  exalted  characters  have  an  added  mellowness  and 
beauty  in  its  exhibition.  Indeed,  this  virtue  illustrates  the  es- 
sential connection  between  truth  and  goodness,  between  the 
moral  and  intellectual  life.  Patience  is  the  instrument  by 
which  all  prolonged  intellectual  efforts  are  conducted,  the  in- 
separable co-efficient  of  intellectual  power. 

We  believe  that  this  "  patience"  is  to  be  exercised  in  a  spe- 
cial and  particular  direction  in  "well-doing."  Dr.  Arnold 
used  to  say  "  that  no  student  would  continue  long  in  a  healthy 
religious  state  unless  his  heart  was  kept  tender  by  mingling 
with  children,  or  by  frequent  intercourse  with  the  poor  and 


352 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


suffering."  Most  people  of  a  religious  turn  of  mind  will  in- 
dorse the  truth  of  this  remark.  Whenever  they  have  tried  to 
do  good  in  this  way,,they  have  found  that  it  rebounds  to  their 
own  good.  Clergymen  may  teach  others,  but  they  know  that 
it  is  at  the  bedside  of  the  sick  that  they  learn  the  highest  les- 
sons for  themselves.  It  is  here  that  mercy  is  twice  blessed  ; 
that  a  man's  kindness  returns  into  his  own  bosom.  Nothing 
is  a  greater  mistake  on  the  part  of  intellectual  people  than  to 
suppose  that  their  main  work  in  life  is  the  cultivation  of  the 
intellect.  As  much  might  a  man  suppose  that  constitutional 
vigor  lies  in  the  brawny  development  of  an  athletic  arm,  or  in 
the  hypertrophy  of  an  over-exerted  and  over-nourished  heart. 
The  true  development  of  a  man  consists  in  the  balanced,  har- 
monious development  of  all  his  powers.  His  physical  and 
mental  powers  must  keep  even  pace,  and  there  must  be  the 
diligent  culture  of  the  moral  feelings.  We  sometimes  meet 
with  men  who  have  a  mind,  indeed,  but  hardly  body  or  soul. 
True  manhood  consists  not  in  mere  intellect,  for  then  Satan 
would  be  altogether  superior  to  us ;  nor  yet  in  physical  pow- 
er, for  then  the  very  beasts  of  the  field  would  surpass  us ;  but 
in  approximation  to  the  nature  of  the  Christ,  who  was  Perfect 
God  and  also  Perfect  Man.  In  the  especial  directions  indi- 
cated by  Dr.  Arnold,  those  true  good  works  of  well-doing,  the 
visiting  of  the  sick,  and  the  mingling  with  little  children,  we 
find  an  ample  field  for  the  development  of  tenderness,  sym- 
pathy, and  charity.  The  sick-bed  of  others  brings  before  us 
both  memories  and  anticipations.  It  reminds  us  of  those 
terms  of  weakness  and  insecurity  which  are  the  conditions  on 
which  we  hold  human  life.  It  brings  back  to  us  the  recollec- 
tion of  hours  of  waiting  and  watching  and  hoping  and  de- 
spairing It  significantly  points,  in  the  hushed  footfall  and  the 
darkened  lights,  to  the  silence  and  suffering  and  resignation 
which  we  must  one  day  make  our  own.  It  is  in  these  sad  re- 


PATIENT  CONTINUANCE  IN  WELL-DOING.       353 

treats  that  we  learn  some  of  the  kindest  and  costliest  lessons 
of  humanity.  We  do  but  render  what  we  hope  to  receive  j 
hanc  veniam  petimusque  damusque  virissim.  We  learn  a  true 
sympathy  with  affliction.  We  learn  patience  and  watchful- 
ness. We  learn  to  bear  and  forbear.  We  are  often  also  per- 
mitted to  see  how  mind  and  faith  preserve  a  victorious  suprem- 
acy over  lassitude  and  disease,  and  how  the  veil  between  the 
human  and  the  disembodied  states  becomes  almost  translu- 
cent. The  purified  spirit  can  almost  live  in  heaven  before  it 
leaves  earth.  There  is  no  one  who  can  truly  mingle  with  lit- 
tle children  without  unsealing  new  founts  of  tenderness  and 
mystery.  When  God  makes  men  fathers,  by  one  more  pre- 
cious means  he  is  carrying  on  the  education  of  the  world.  He 
teaches  us  by  the  children  as  much  as  he  teaches  the  children 
by  us.  Perhaps  only  the  childless  or  those  who  have  lost  a 
child  can  quite  appreciate  the  full  meaning  and  beauty  of  such 
lessons.  We  discern  how  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  be- 
come as  little  children.  We  begin  to  understand  how  their 
love  and  faith  and  weakness  and  dependence  and  tenderness 
should  symbolize  our  dependence  on  the  Father  of  Spirits. 
It  is  through  loving  tendance  on  the  sick  and  children  that 
our  sympathies  and  loving  interests  continue  fresh  and  green, 
and  are  not  withered  in  the  fierce  noontides  of  life.  In  that 
patience  which  we  seek  to  show  them  is  the  foresight  of  their 
wants  ;  in  tender  dealings  with  their  weakness  and  ignorance 
and  inexperience,  in  the  constant  guidance  and  instruction 
they  require,  are  seen  dimly  shadowed  forth  the  compassion 
and  patience  of  God  toward  us,  the  children  of  larger  growth. 
We  have  spoken  of  "  well-doing  "  as  exhibited  in  these  two 
forms  of  beneficence.  But  every  form  of  beneficence  is  cov- 
ered by  the  expression.  The  special  characteristic  of  the 
Christian  is  that  he  is  zealous  for  good  works.  The  well-do- 
ing includes  the  doing  well  in  every  department  of  life,  the 


354 


TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


looking  forward  to  the  anticipation  of  the  final  "well  done." 
The  only  way  by  which  we  can  possibly  accomplish  the  highest 
arts  of  life,  attain  to  its  highest  meaning,  is  by  drawing  our 
strength  and  inspirations  from  the  highest  source.  Through 
any  more  secular  system,  through  any  "  enlightened  self-inter- 
est," we  should  infallibly  break  down.  In  all  well-doing  we 
have  to  consider  that  we  get  by  losing,  and  lose  by  getting. 
We  must  rise  altogether  from  the  region  of  self.  Newman 
speaks  of  "  a  remarkable  law  of  ethics  which  is  well  known  to 
all  who  have  given  their  minds  to  the  subject,  i.e.,  all  virtue 
and  goodness  tend  to  make  men  powerful  in  this  world ;  but 
they  who  aim  at  the  power  have  not  the  virtue."  Again  : 
"Virtue  is  its  own  reward,  and  brings  with  it  its  truest  and 
highest  pleasures ;  but  they  who  cultivate  it  for  the  pleasure 
sake  are  selfish,  not  religious,  and  will  never  gain  the  pleas- 
ure, because  they  never  can  have  the  virtue."  The  saying  is 
of  wider  import  in  practical  life  than  might  perhaps  be  thought. 
In  ordinary,  average,  respectable  English  life,  many  people 
strive  to  be  virtuous  and  good,  not  for  the  sake  of  virtue  and 
goodness,  but  on  account  of  the  pressure  of  public  opinion 
brought  to  bear  upon  them.  Men  live  in  the  full  glare  of  a  mu- 
tually destructive  criticism.  They  accommodate  their  actions 
to  a  certain  semblance  and  standard.  They  may  gain  influ- 
ence, but  may  not  attain  to  virtue  ;  they  may  gain  the  respect 
of  others,  but  hardly  their  own  respect.  The  man  who  does 
well  in  deference  to  the  current  opinion  of  his  class,  the  stand- 
ard of  conduct  among  his  friends,  must  always  be  haunted  by 
the  unhappy  suspicion  of  hypocrisy,  and  must  be  liable  to  fall 
back  into  the  very  contrary  of  his  professions  whenever  the 
exterior  pressure  is  withdrawn.  Let  the  incubus  be  removed, 
and  there  is  a  rebound  of  the  spring ;  the  character  reverts  to 
its  natural  type.  But  to  desire  to  do  well  because  our  life  is 
linked  with  the  divine  life,  and  we  seek  to  be  the  children  of 


PATIENT  CONTINUANCE  IN  WELL-DOING.      355 

our  Father  in  heaven,  must  be  a  well-spring  of  joy,  and  source 
of  the  purest  delight.  "  From  Me  is  thy  fruit  found  !"  "  All 
my  fresh  springs  shall  be  in  Thee !" 

The  well-doing  can  only  be  accomplished  by  the  divine, 
energizing  power  of  Love.  Love,  the  imperishable,  the  inde- 
structible, ennobling,  purifying,  "  the  very  bond  of  peace  and 
of  all  virtue."  This  must  be  the  principle  in  the  heart,  which 
is  abhorrent  to  every  form  of  evil  and  injustice,  and  ever  seeks 
the  highest  good  of  all.  Or  rather,  let  us  say,  that  the  glori- 
ous Three — Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity — must  assist ;  but  Love 
shall  hereafter  be  all  in  all — one  God,  one  Lord,  one  Life.  "  I 
venture  to  assert,"  says  Schlegel,  "  that  the  human  conscious- 
ness, which  otherwise  ends  in  itself,  is  entirely  a  prey  to  dis- 
cord, and  beset  with  irreconcilable  contraries,  is  by  Faith, 
Hope,  and  Love,  relieved  from  this  dissension,  is  raised  from 
its  innate  law  of  an  erring  and  dead  thought,  and  of  an  abso- 
lute will  which  is  no  less  dead,  and  will  bring  mankind  grad- 
ually to  a  perfect  state  of  union  and  harmony."  We  have 
spoken  of  Love  as  the  great  motive  power ;  let  us  also  speak 
of  Faith  and  Hope. 

By  this  faith  I  understand  a  simple,  objective  faith  in  God 
and  his  revealed  truth,  belief  in  the  objective  truth  of  religion. 
Our  idea  is  that  man's  thought  and  consciousness,  and  any 
system,  must  be  based  on  the  external  facts  of  revelation, 
which  are  preternaturally  revealed  to  us.  There  must  be  a 
firm  belief  in  the  living  Fatherhood  of  God.  The  soul  that 
finds  no  rest  in  itself,  .must  come  to  rest  in  God  as  its  source 
and  centre,  to  believe^the  Heavenly  Father's  declaration,  "  I 
have  loved  thee  with  -an  everlasting  love ;"  that  before  ever 
the  world  was  formed,  God's  infinite  love  contemplated  his 
creatures,  and  loved  them,  and  rejoiced  in  them.  To  it  God 
will  be  no  mere  abstraction,  but  a  living,  loving,  personal  be- 
ing. Our  weak  erring  wills  will  be  submitted  to  the  Divine 


356  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 


will,  and  in  that  submission  the  discords  of  life  will  be  hushed. 
Our  faith  will  rest  in  God  our  Saviour,  on  the  finished  work 
of  Jesus,  and  the  righteousness  which  he  both  imputes  and 
imparts,  on  his  sympathy  with  us  as  the  Divine  Friend  and 
Brother,  on  his  helping  us  and  pleading  for  us  as  our  Medi- 
ator and  Intercessor.  It  will  include  a  humble,  firm  reliance 
on  the  help  of  a  Divine  Spirit  We  shall  learn  to  look  be- 
yond this  world  for  real  enlightenment  and  comfort.  Not 
from  scenes  of  earth,  but  from  the  golden  gates  of  heaven 
must  come  those  salutary  airs  which  shall  purify,  revive,  and 
invigorate  the  soul.  That  blessed  Spirit  is  the  source  of 
peace,  the  very  focus  and  centre  of  the  soul ;  by  it  our  dark- 
ness is  illuminated,  and  the  soul  is  restored  after  the  likeness 
of  the  moral  image  of  the  Creator. 

True,  living  faith  is  the  reception  into  the  soul  of  God's 
eternal  truth,  bringing  it  into  harmony  with  itself,  and  into 
unity  with  God.  Even  in  this  world  Faith  is  the  greatest 
force  in  life,  leading  us  to  rely  on  human  testimony,  and  to 
trust  in  the  recorded  facts  of  experimental  science,  and  in  the 
divine  plan  this  is  made  the  great  agency  of  human  happiness 
and  salvation. 

The  third  great  force  of  the  soul  is  Hope,  the  "  better  hope," 
as  it  is  pathetically  described.  We  have  spoken  of  the  illu- 
sions and  disappointments  of  life.  It  is  sad  to  speak  and  to 
think  of  them.  But  we  may  believe  that  there  is  no  hope  of 
youth,  however  ardent,  no  illusion  of  life,  however  brilliant, 
that  shall  not  receive  an  infinite  accomplishment  in  the  infi- 
nite future.  We  are  told  that  "  the  parched  ground  shall  be- 
come a  pool;"  according  to  the  true  meaning,  "the  mirage 
shall  become  the  lake;"  the  illusions  shall  be  accomplish- 
ments, appearances  realities.  The  heart  of  man  is  so  consti- 
tuted that  it  is  full  of  a  divine  despair  and  a  noble  longing. 
"  In  this  noble  hope  is  longing,  that  marvelous  flower  of  the 


PATIENT  CONTINUANCE  IN  WELL-DOING.       357 

soul,  expanded  Into  its  perfect  and  boldest  point."  Still  is 
the  eye  unsatisfied  with  seeing  and  the  ear  with  hearing,  and 
we  have  those  vague  dreams  of  happiness  which  our  human 
experience  may  sternly  assure  us  can  never  be  satisfied  on 
earth.  Evermore  the're  is  unrest  and  dissatisfaction,  and  a 
yearning,  a  longing,  an  aspiration  for  something  that  eludes 
our  reach  and  lies  beyond  the  region  of  our  life. 

"  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star, 

Of  the  day  for  the  morrow ; 
The  devotion  to  something  afar 
From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow." 

Now  to  divine  hope  we  look  for  the  realization  of  whatever 
is  true  and  good  in  the  dreams  of  the  soul.  And  we  are  sure 
that  this  hope  will  not  fail  us,  for  it  rests  upon  an  anchor  sure 
and  steadfast — even  upon  God ;  "  round  our  incompleteness 
his  completeness,  round  our  restlessness  his  rest."  In  him  lies 
our  better  hope,  the  hope  of  that  blessed  state  where  pain  and 
disease  and  error  and  misconception,  and  the  sense  of  sin  and 
want  will  be  removed ;  the  "  better  hope"  that  even  all  these 
things,  by  some  divine  alchemy,  shall  be  overruled  for  good — 
the  blessed  hope  of  eternal  life.* 

The  time  comes  when,  perhaps,  we  are  tempted  to  grow 
weary  and  faint  in  our  minds.  The  fresh  morning  yields  to 
the  hot,  white  light  of  the  long  dull  afternoon  of  life.  There 
seems  a  monotony  about  existence.  We  find  that  we  are 
compassed  about  with  petty  cares,  and  the  routine  of  com- 

*  Schlegel,  in  speaking  of  the  relation  of  knowledge  to  belief,  has  these 
words  on  the  relation  of  faith  and  love  to  knowledge  :  "  The  free  spirit  of 
knowledge  can  not  look  down  on  its  own  height  and  pay  no  regard  either 
to  faith  or  love.  In  the  depths  of  sensuous  observation,  amid  all  the  rich 
treasures  of  physical  and  historical  science,  it  can  not  move  as  sovereign 
without  being  first  invested  with  the  luxurious  garment  of  pure  faith  and 
love.  Otherwise,  it  does  only  hasten  from  one  error  to  another,  to  fall 
from  the  first  abyss  into  a  second  and  still  deeper  one." 


358  TURNING-POINTS  IN  LIFE. 

monplace  duties.  We  do  not  see  that  our  work  is  prosperous, 
or  that  we  are  making  any  real  or  wide  impression  where  we 
would  most  desire  to  do  so.  Life  seems  hardly  worth  the 
having.  It  is  dull,  emotionless,  stereotyped,  uninteresting. 
Such  are  the  complaints  which  one  hears ;  and,  indeed,  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  hear  men  of  elevated  minds,  and  of  happy 
external  circumstances,  declare  that  they  would  not  continue 
life  at  their  own  option,  and,  indeed,  if  the  power  of  choice  had 
been  given  them,  they  would  have  elected  never  to  have  been 
born.  It  is  here  that  the  true  science  of  life  comes  into  play. 
It  was  never  meant  that  the  glorious  existence  conferred  upon 
us  should  be  barren  of  interest  and  devoid  of  sympathy.  That 
this  should  be  the  case  would  augur  something  strangely  amiss 
both  in  heart  and  mind.  The  play  of  thought  and  feeling 
ought  to  be  fountain-like  and  fresh.  There  is  always  friend, 
child,  or  kinsman  to  own  our  love,  and  in  the  Christian  heart 
love  is  wider  than  these,  and  can  even  take  in  the  loneliness 
of  the  most  estranged  and  degraded  and  most  distant,  and  ex- 
pand beyond  the  barriers  of  one's  own  land  and  age.  By  the 
skillful  management  of  life  we  are  able  to  take  more  and  more 
out  of  it,  we  are  able  to  alternate  rest  and  activity,  recreation 
and  work.  We  are  able  to  add  new  objects  of  intellectual  in- 
terest ;  to  win  "  fresh  woods  and  pastures  new ;"  to  attain  and 
retain  the  hearing  ear  and  the  seeing  eye.  We  may  believe 
also  that  the  effort  of  moral  and  religious  progress  is  truly  ger- 
minant,  that  we  may  learn  and  act  down  to  the  last  day  of  our 
lives,  and  whatever  we  learn  and  act  here,  in  some  sort  of  way 
will  have  a  relation  to  the  fruition  of  a  future  life. 

Then  there  comes  the  supreme  turning-point  of  all,  the 
transition  between  life  and  death,  or  rather  between  life  and 
life — this  dim,  shadowy,  incomplete  life,  and  that  which  has  the 
fullness  of  joy  and  pleasure  for  evermore.  In  one  sense,  all 
life  is  but  a  preparation  for  this  great  turning-point,  and  it  is 


PATIENT  CONTINUANCE  IN   WELL-DOING. 


359 


obvious  that  the  turning-point  is  determined  by  the  whole  an- 
tecedent life.  The  whole  life,  not  only  the  religious  part  of 
life — if,  indeed,  any  part  of  human  life  can  be  separated  from  a 
religious  aspect — has  gone  toward  the  issues  of  that  supreme 
event.  We  may  so  prepare  for  a  crisis  that  when  it  comes  it 
shall  be  determined  in  the  foreseen  direction.  So  to  speak, 
we  go  into  training  for  it.  I  remember  a  man  who  had  just 
accomplished  a  matter  very  dear  to  his  heart  in  the  ascent  of 
Monte  Rosa.  He  had  steadily  prepared  for  it.  When  the 
day  for  the  effort  came,  it  was  really  no  effort  for  him.  The 
feat,  now  no  uncommon  one,  was  without  difficulty  and  with- 
out danger.  Which  things  are  an  allegory.  Night  after  night 
we  die  and  are  born  again.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  he 
who  lies  down  in  his  bed  as  in  his  grave,  will  one  day  lie  down 
in  his  grave  as  in  his  bed.  WTe  may  so  prepare  that  the  time 
shall  not  come  unawares,  but  whenever  it  may  happen  it  shall 
be  at  "  a  convenient  season." 
As  Dean  Milman  said : 

"  It  little  matters  at  what  hour  o'  the  day 
The  righteous  falls  asleep.    Death  can  not  come 
To  him  untimely  who  has  learned  to  die. 
The  less  of  this  brief  life  the  more  of  heaven ; 
The  shorter  time  the  longer  immortality." 

That  great  change  comes,  and  for  such  a  one  as  that  it 
shall  be  a  happy  one,  yea,  the  happiest  turning-point  of  all. 
The  soul,  refusing  the  lower  aims  of  life,  has  thirsted  for 
glory,  honor,  and  immortality ;  and  by  that  living  faith  in  a 
Saviour  which  consists  in  following  his  law  of  love,  the  law 
of  the  patient  continuance  in  well-doing,  has  been  brought 
through  the  changes  and  chances  of  existence,  and  has  gained 
that  boon  beyond  all  boons,  eternal  life. 


INDEX. 


ABBOTSFORD,  248. 

Alderson,  Baron,  71. 

Alford,  Dean,  26, 47. 

Alison,  Sir  A.,  290,  292. 

Aristotle  on. habit,  33, 39. 

Arkwright,  the  inventor,  238. 

Arnold,  Dr.,  on  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  47 ; 
his  influence,  48 ;  on  ancient  and  modern 
history,  253 ;  on  children  and  the  poor,  352. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted,  162,  314. 

"Ars  vivendi"  340. 

Art,  "moments"  in,  165. 

Atavism,  doctrine  of,  36. 

Aubrey,  quoted,  236. 

Auckland  correspondence,  258. 

Audubon,  56. 

Augustine,  St.,  on  advocacy,  102 ;  ladder  of, 
306. 

Austerlitz,  battle  of,  260. 

BACON,  Lord,  47,  162. 

Bar,  the,  and  profession,  94. 

Baring,  Henry,  marriage  of,  56. 

Barristers,  Briefless,  94. 

Barry,  James,  the  painter,  166. 

Beckwith,  General,  story  of,  64. 

Bell,  Sir  Charles,  on  the  argument  from  de- 
sign, 173 ;  his  love  of  fishing,  174. 

Bemerton,  George  Herbert  at,  158. 

Blomfield,  bishop,  quoted,  219. 

Bonchurch,  tomb  of  W.  Adams  at,  158. 

Bowdler,  John,  241. 

Bowles,  W.  L.,  the  poet,  200. 

Brewster,  Sir  David,  anecdote  of  recovery  of 
eyesight,  16. 

Brodie,  Sir  Benjamin,  207. 

Bronte,  Charlotte,  quoted,  45  ;  difficulties  of, 
164. 

Q 


Browning,  Robert,  his  poem  of  "  Lazarus," 

29. 

Brunei,  I.  K.,  183. 
Budgett,  Mr.,  "The  Successful  Merchant," 

211. 

Buffon,  24. 

Buller,  Mr.  Justice,  points  in  his  history, 

2OI. 

Burke,  Edmund,  162,  166,  257. 
Burns,  164. 
Butler,  Bishop,  47. 
Byron,  Lord,  21,  164. 

CAMBRIDGE,  peculiarities  of  system,  73 ; 
•wrangling,  81 ;  compared  with  Oxford,  78. 

Campbell,  Lord,  his  "  Lives,"  19, 98, 205, 206. 

Campbell,  the  poet,  248. 

Canning,  Mr.,  205. 

Carpenter,  Dr.,  dredging  operations  of,  24. 

Chancellor,  Lord,  Church  patronage  of,  118. 

Chelmsford,  Lord,  56. 

Cicero,  103. 

Circumstances,  force  of,  300. 

Civil  Service  as  a  profession,  107. 

Clevedon,  epitaphs  of  Hallam  family  at,  250. 
251. 

Clifton  Suspension  Bridge,  186. 

Coleridge,  Hartley,  quoted,  40. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  57. 

Colquhoun,  Mr.,  on  "Contemporaries  of 
Wilberforce,"  240. 

Columbus,  23. 

Coplestone,  Bishop,  o»  Necessity  and  Pre- 
destination, 320. 

Cornish  miner,  story  of,  51. 

Cornish  railway,  186. 

Cotton,  Bishop,  48,  51. 

Cotton,  William,  sketch  of,  220. 


362 


INDEX. 


Cowper,  William,  17. 

Crabbe,  22. 

Cranworth,  Lord  (Baron  Rolfe),  138. 

Culture  and  the  "  Culturists,"  314. 

D'ALBMBERT,  story  of,  246. 

Calling,  Lord,  on  M.  Guizot,  235 ;  on  Mr. 
Huskisson,  279. 

Dart,  scenery  of  the,  and  Rhine,  154. 

Darwin,  Mr.,  on  Atavism,  34. 

Davy,  Sir  Humphrey,  at  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion, 22. 

Decisive  battles,  278. 

Denison,  Edward,  sketch  of,  no. 

Descartes  and  Pascal,  169. 

Dickens,  Charles,  quoted,  1 32, 306 ;  his  Broth- 
ers Cheeryble,  214. 

Discipline  of  life,  335. 

Dissenting  Ministry,  93. 

Dumas,  Alexander,  anecdotes  of,  249. 

Dupanloup,  Bishop,  on  married  life,  144 ;  on 
the  plan  of  life%  328 ;  "  La  Femme  studi- 
euse,"  142. 

EASTLAKB,  Sir  Charles,  sketching  portrait 

of  Napoleon,  21. 

Eldon,  Lord,  John  Scott,  28, 118. 
Eliot,  George,  "Spanish  Gipsy"  quoted,  37, 

132- 
Elliott,  Henry  Venn,  his  marriage,  142. 

FARADAY'S  introduction  to  the  Royal  Insti- 
tution, 22. 

Fe'nelon,  328. 

Flaxman's  recollections  of  Romney,  46. 
•  Forbes,  Edward,  the  naturalist,  176. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  events  in  life  of,  260 ; 
his  death,  261. 

France,  invasion  of,  in  1794  and  1870,  285- 
292. 

Freeman,  Mr.  E.  A.,  155. 

Froude,  Mr.  J.  A.,  155. 

GALILEO,  first  view  of  phases  of  Venus,  24. 
Gallon's  "  Hereditary  Genius"  quoted,  54, 

note;  184. 
George  the  Third  on  English  law,  195. 


Gilly,  Dean,  on  the  Waldenses,  66. 

Gisborne,  Rev.  T.,  home  at  Needham,  242. 

Gladstone,  Mr.,  147,  220. 

Goodsir,  John,  the  anatomist,  sketch  of,  175. 

Gothe,  139,  315. 

Grant,  Sir  W.,  191. 

Granville,  Earl,  255. 

Grief,  discipline  of,  337. 

Grote,  George,  on  the  Sophists,  25. 

Guardian  quoted,  220. 

Guizot,  supposed  feeling  of,  toward  England, 

254- 
Gunning,  Reminiscences  of  Cambridge,  302. 

HABITS,  considerations  on,  27. 

Haddo,  Lord  (Earl  of  Aberdeen),  14*. 

Hale,  Bishop,  quoted,  129. 

Hale,  Sir  M.,  anecdote  of,  317. 

Hall,  Dr.  Marshall,  discoveries  in  nervous 
system,  173. 

Hallam,  F.  H.,  251. 

Hallam,  Henry,  250. 

Hamilton,  Dr.  James,  140. 

Hanway,  Jonas,  214. 

Hastings,  Warren,  intrigues  against,  ,59. 

Hatherley,  Lord,  191. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  58. 

Henslow,  Professor,  his  discoveries  in  botany, 
179;  Darwin's  character  of,  180;  among 
agricultural  laborers,  181 ;  objections  to 
Darwin's  theories,  182  ;  death,  182. 

Herbert,  George,  158. 

Herbert,  Lord,  of  Cherbury,  quoted,  62. 

Holland,  Sir  Henry,  on  travel,  146. 

Hooker  and  his  wife,  136 ;  saying  of,  195. 

Howson,  Dean,  on  obedience,  33. 

Hume,  Joseph,  story  of  life  of,  55. 

Hursley,  Church  at,  158. 

Huxley,  Professor,  313. 

Hyde,  Edward  (Lord  Clarendon),  sketch  of, 
264 ;  extracts  from  correspondence  of,  270. 

"Irs"  of  history,  279. 

Inglis,  Sir  Robert  Harry,  244. 

lona,  158. 

Isaiah,  text  from,  40. 

I  vybridge,  viaduct  at,  185. 


INDEX. 


363 


JEFFREY  on  Wordsworth,  164. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  on  genius,  89 ;  at  lona,  158. 
Jonson,  Ben,  "Valiant  Man,"  347. 
Jowett,  Professor,  47. 

Justin  Martyr,  "  Dialogue  with  Trypho," 
15- 

KEATS,  164. 

Keble  College,  86. 

Keble,  Rev.  J.,  51, 147,  320. 

Kingsdown,  Lord  (Pemberton  Leigh),  193, 

230. 
Kingsley,  Rev.  Charles,  24, 83,  338. 

LATTMER,  Bishop,  habit  of  story-telling,  64. 
Lee,  Master  William,  and  his  invention,  172. 
Lewes,  Mr.  G.  H.,  on  Gothe,  139. 
Lewis,  Sir  G.  C.,  on   "turning-point"   in 

Fox's  career,  261 ;  sketch  of,  273. 
Lichfield,  Bishop  of  (Selwyn),  120,  note. 
Liverpool  from  the  Mersey,  31. 
Longley,  Archbishop,  226. 
Lugano,  evening  at,  61. 
Lunardi's  balloon,  200. 
Lynedoch,  Lord,  story  of,  56. 

MACAULAY,  Lord,  47,  i4S»  '55.  *44i  275  >  an~ 

ecdote  of,  303. 
Maclise,  story  of,  165. 
Macmillan,  Rev.  Hugh,  writings  of,  23. 
Malesherbes,  46. 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  incident  in  life  of, 

292. 
Marsh,  Herbert,  Bishop  of  Peterborough, 

20. 

Maurice,  Rev.  J.  D.  F.,  78. 

Melvill,  Canon,  226. 

Melville,  Lord,  condemnation  of,  259. 

Miller,  Hugh,  memoirs  of,  29;  his  marriage, 
140. 

Milmnn,  Dean,  359. 

Milner,  President  of  Queen's  College,  Cam- 
bridge, 240. 

Milton,  22,  68 ;  "  Lycidas"  quoted,  109. 

Mitford  (first  Lord  Redesdale),  194. 

Moore,  Thomas,  238. 

M  tiller,  the  physiologist,  173. 


NAPOLEON  I.,  21,  212,  285-292. 

Napoleon  III.,  227,  279. 

Newman,  F.  A.,  at  Bagdad,  48 ;  conversation 
with  a  Mohammedan  at  Aleppo,  49. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  citation  from  the  "Apolo- 
gia, 49, 153 ;  law  in  ethics,  354. 

Newton,  Rev.  John,  240. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  172. 

Novel  Writers,  confessions  of,  318. 

OCCAM,  days  of,  at  Oxford,  69. 

Orders,  taking  holy,  116. 

Oriel  College,  fellowships  at,  77. 

Oxestierna,  saying  of,  254. 

Oxford  compared  with  Cambridge,  78 ;  class 
lists,  So ;  school  of  law  and  modern  histo- 
ry, 82 ;  view  of,  83. 

PAGET,  Sir  James,  35. 

Paley's  teleological  watch,  13. 

Palgrave,  Mr.  F.  T.,  quoted,  311. 

Pall  Mall  Gazette  quoted,  176. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  118. 

Parallels,  historical,  285. 

Pascal  Blaise,  sketch  of,  167 ;  his  accident  at 

Neuilly,  170;  remarkable  conversation  of, 

171. 

Patience,  plan  of  the  Christian  life,  350. 
Paul,  St.,  a  tent-maker,  93 ;  on  marriage,  133 ; 

as  a  traveler,  139. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  221,  255. 
Penal  servitude,  long  sentences  of,  41. 
Pepys  quoted,  237, 268. 
Perorations  of  speeches,  254. 
Persius  quoted,  25. 
Petty,  Sir  W.,  sketch  of,  235. 
Philippe,  King  Louis,  255. 
Philosophy  of  life,  326. 
Phipps,  Sir  W.,  sketch  of,  231. 
Pitt,  William,  Wilberforce  on,  247 ;  entrance 

on  public  life,  257;   possible   retribution 

on,  260 ;  meets  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  260 ; 

death  of,  263. 

Prodicus's  fable  of  Hercules,  25. 
Profession,  choice  of,  89;  Comparison  of 

professions,  90. 
Providence,  theories  of,  101. 


364 


INDEX. 


RENNIE,  the  engineer,  246. 

Komilly,  Sir  Samuel,  142. 

Romney,  the  painter,  46. 

Rush,  the  murderer,  138. 

Russell,  Earl,  on  Pitt  and  Fox,  257,  262. 

Saturday  Review  quoted,  1 10,  226. 

Schlegel  on  marriage,  129;  on  connection 
between  faith  and  knowledge,  189 ;  on  turn- 
ing-points in  history,  298. 

Schubert,  sayings  of,  332. 

Scott,  Thomas,  "Force  of  Truth,"  58. 

Sequoia,  giganiea,  23. 

Seville,  religious  reformation  in,  152. 

Shairp,  Principal,  "  Culture  and  Religion," 
312;  quoted,  324. 

Smeaton's  last  illness,  173. 

Smith,  Sidney,  his  fits  of  depression,  44. 

Spencer,  Mr.  Herbert,  on  Atavism,  36. 

Stael,  Madame  de,  159. 

Stanley,  Dean,  quoted,  133, 

Stephen  (Master  in  Chancery),  241. 

Stowell,  Lord  (William  Scott),  191. 

Strutt,  Jedediah,  sketch  of,  237. 

TAINE,  M.,  quoted,  85. 

Talfourd,  Mr.  Justice,  100,  207. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  Apologue  on  Marriage,  135 ; 
on  Providence,  334. 

Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  quoted,  311. 

Telford,  the  engineer,  186,  246. 

Temple,  Bishop,  on  scruples,  14;  on  educa- 
tion of  the  world,  286. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  on  first  view  of  London, 
27;  on  travel,  147;  lines  from,  147;  Lin- 
colnshire scenery,  154;  on  work,  162;  on 
fame  and  use,  189;  his  "Palace  of  Art," 
316;  "Wages,"  338. 

Tenterden,firstLord(Charles  Abbott),  sketch 
of,  196. 


Thackeray,  164,  263,  338. 

Thiers,  M.,  288,  291. 

Thomson,  "Castle  of  Indolence"  quoted, 
156. 

Thomson,  Sir  William,  discoveries  in  elec- 
tricity, 172. 

Thorntons,  the  two,  244. 

Travel,  145. 

Trench,  Archbishop,  quoted,  307. 

Truro,  Lord  (Sergeant  Wilde),  195. 

Tucker,  Abraham,  on  Providence,  323. 

Tyndall,  Professor,  36. 

Tytler,  Patrick  Fraser,  100. 

UNIVERSITIES,  Scottish,  71. 
University  careers,  69 ;  funds,  86 ;  extension, 
87. 

VAN  MILDERT,  Bishop,  217. 

Vasari,  165. 

Vauban,  294. 

Voltaire,  last  days  of,  249. 

WALDENSBS  of  Piedmont,  67. 

Wallace,  Mr.,  the  naturalist,  quoted,  284. 

Walton,  Izaak,  136, 158,  217. 

Ward,  E.  M.,  painting  by,  268. 

Washington,  incident  in  life  of,  58. 

Watson,  Joshua,  sketch  of,  216. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  53, 64. 

West,  the  painter,  anecdote  of,  165. 

Westminster  Abbey,  62. 

Wickham,  the  diplomatist,  57. 

Wilberforce,  William,  247. 

Winslow,  Dr.  Forbes,  on  mental  disease,  305. 

Wissembourg,  battles  of,  in  1793  and  1870, 

285. 

Woolner,  on  a  protuberance  of  the  ear,  36. 
Worcester,  Bishop  of  (Philpott),  120. 
Wordsworth,  William,  84, 164, 347. 


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$10  00  per  set.  Sold  only  in  Sets.  Cheap  Edition,  5  vols.  in 
a  Box,  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  50 ;  Sheep,  $3  75. 

MACAULAY'S  MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS.  The  Miscel- 
laneous Works  of  Lord  Macaulay.  From  New  Electrotype 
Plates.  In  Five  Volumes.  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Un- 
cut Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  in  a  Box,  $10  00.  Sold  only  in  Sets. 

HUME'S  ENGLAND.  The  History  of  England,  from  the  Inva- 
sion of  Julius  Cassar  to  the  Abdication  of  James  II.,  1688.  By 
DAVID  HUME.  New  and  Elegant  Library  Edition,  from  new 
Electrotype  Plates.  6  vols.  in  a  Box,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper 
Labels,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $12  00.  Sold  only  in  Sets. 
Popular  Edition,  6  vols.  in  a  Box,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  00  ;  Sheep, 
$4  50. 

GIBBON'S  ROME.  The  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  By  EDWARD  GIBBON.  With  Notes  by  Dean 
MILMAN,  M.  GUIZOT,  and  Dr.  WILLIAM  SMITH.  New  Edition, 
from  new  Electrotype  Plates.  6  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper 
Labels,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $12  00.  Sold  only  in  Sets. 
Popular  Edition,  6  vols.  in  a  Box,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  00 ;  Sheep, 
$450. 

GEDDES'S  JOHN  DE  WITT.  History  of  the  Administration 
of  John  De  Witt,  Grand  Pensionary  of  Holland.  By  JAMBS 
GEDDKS.  Vol.  I.— 1623-1654.  With  a  Portrait.  8vo,  Cloth, 
$2  50. 


2  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

HILDRETH'S  UNITED  STATES.  History  of  the  United  States. 
FIBST  SERIES  :  From  the  Discovery  of  the  Continent  to  the 
Organization  of  the.  Government  under  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion. SECOND  SKRIES:  From  the  Adoption  of  the  Federal 
Constitution  to  the  End  of  the  Sixteenth  Congress.  By  RICH- 
ARD HILDRETH.  Popular  Edition,  6  vols.  in  a  Box,  8vo,  Cloth, 
with  Paper  Labels,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $12  00.  Sold 
only  in  Sets. 

MOTLEY'S  DUTCH  REPUBLIC.  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch 
Republic.  A  History.  By  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY,  LL.D., 
D.C.L.  With  a  Portrait  of  William  of  Orange.  Cheap  Edi- 
tion, 3  vols.  in  a  Box,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Uncut 
Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $6  00.  Sold  only  in  Sets.  Original 
Library  Edition,  3  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  50 ;  Sheep,  $12  00 ; 
Half  Calf,  $17  25. 

MOTLEY'S  UNITED  NETHERLANDS.  History  of  the  Unit- 
ed Netherlands :  from  the  Death  of  William  the  Silent  to  the 
Twelve  Years'  Truce— 1584-1609.  With  a  full  View  of  the 
English-Dutch  Struggle  against  Spain,  and  of  the  Origin  and 
Destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  By  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOT- 
LET,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  Portraits.  Cheap  Edition,  4  vols.  in  a 
Box,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt 
Tops,  $8  00.  Sold  only  in  Sets.  Original  Library  Edition, 
4  volumes,  8vo,  Cloth,  $14  00;  Sheep,  $16  00;  Half  Calf, 
$23  00. 

MOTLEY'S  JOHN  OF  BARNEVELD.  The  Life  and  Death 
of  John  of  Barneveld,  Advocate  of  Holland:  with  a  View  of 
the  Primary  Causes  and  Movements  of  "The  Thirty  Years' 
War."  By  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  Illustrat- 
ed. Cheap  Edition,  2  vols.  in  a  Box,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper 
Labels,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $4  00.  Sold  only  in  Sets. 
Original  Library  Edition,  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $7  00 ;  Sheep, 
$8  00;  Half  Calf,  $11  50. 

GOLDSMITH'S  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Oliver  Goldsmith. 
Edited  by  PETER  CUNNINGHAM,  F.S.A.  From  new  Electro- 
type Plates.  4  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  Paper  Labels,  Uncut  Edges 
and  Gilt  Tops,  $8  00.  Uniform  with  the  New  Library  Editions 
of  Macaulay,  Hume,  Gibbon,  Motley,  and  Hildreth. 

HUDSON'S  HISTORY  OF  JOURNALISM.  Journalism  in  the 
United  States,  from  1690  to  1872.  By  FREDERIC  HUDSON. 
ivo,  Cloth,  $5  00 ;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.          3 

SYMONDS'S  SKETCHES  AND  STUDIES  IN  SOUTHERN 
EUROPE.  By  JOHN  ADDINGTON  SYMONDS.  In  Two  Vol- 
umes. Post  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

SYMONDS'S  GREEK  POETS.  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets. 
By  JOHN  ADDINGTON  SYMONDS.  2  vols.,  Square  16mo,  Cloth, 

$3  50. 

TREVELYAN'S  LIFE  OF  MACAULAY.  The  Life  and  Let- 
ters of  Lord  Macaulay.  By  his  Nephew,  G.  OTTO  TREVELYAN, 
M.P.  With  Portrait  on  Steel.  Complete  in  2  vols.,  8vo, 
Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $5  00;  Sheep,  $6  00; 
Half  Calf,  $9  50.  Popular  Edition,  two  vols.  in  one,  12mo, 
Cloth,  $1  75. 

TREVELYAN'S  LIFE  OF  FOX.  The  Early  History  of  Charles 
James  Fox.  By  GEORGE  OTTO  TRKVELYAN.  8vo,  Cloth,  Un- 
cut Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $2  50 ;  4to,  Paper,  20  cents. 

MULLER'S  POLITICAL  HISTORY  OF  RECENT  TIMES. 
Political  History  of  Recent  Times  (1816-1875).  With  Special 
Reference  to  Germany.  By  WILLIAM  MULLER.  Revised  and 
Enlarged  by  the  Author.  Translated,  with  an  Appendix  cov- 
ering the  Period  from  1876  to  1881,  by  the  Rev.  JOHN  P.  PE- 
TERS, Ph.D.  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

LOSSING'S  CYCLOPAEDIA  OF  UNITED  STATES  HIS- 
TORY. Popular  Cyclopaedia  of  United  States  History.  From 
the  Aboriginal  Period  to  1876.  By  B.  J.  LOSSING,  LL.D.  Il- 
lustrated by  2  Steel  Portraits  and  over  1000  Engravings.  2 
vols.,  Royal  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  00.  (Sold  by  Subscription  only.) 

LOSSING'S  FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  Picto- 
rial Field-Book  of  the  Revolution  ;  or,  Illustrations  by  Pen  and 
Pencil  of  the  History,  Biography,  Scenery,  Relics,  and  Traditions 
of  the  War  for  Independence.  By  BENSON  J.  LOSSING.  2  vols., 
8vo,  Cloth,  $14  00 ;  Sheep  or  Roan,  $15  00 ;  Half  Calf,  $18  00. 

LOSSING'S  FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812.  Pictorial 
Field-Book  of  the  War  of  1812;  or,  Illustrations  by  Pen  and 
Pencil  of  the  History,  Biography,  Scenery,  Relics,  and  Tradi- 
tions of  the  last  War  for  American  Independence.  By  BENSON 
J.  LOSSING.  WTith  several  hundred  Engravings  on  Wood  by 
Lossing  and  Barritt,  chiefly  from  Original  Sketches  by  the  Au- 
thor. 1088  pages,  8vo,  Cloth,  $7  00;  Sheep,  $8  50;  Rc-Ml 
$9  00;  Half  Calf,  $10  00. 


4  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

PARTON'S  CARICATURE.  Caricature  and  Other  Comic  Art, 
in  All  Times  and  Many  Lands.  By  JAMES  PARTON.  203  Illus- 
trations. 8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $5  00 ;  Half 
Calf,  $7  25. 

MAHAFFY'S  GREEK  LITERATURE.  A  History  of  Classical 
Greek  Literature.  By  J.  P.  MAHAFFY.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$4  00 ;  Half  Calf,  $7  50. 

DU  CHAILLU'S  LAND  OF  THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN.  Sum- 
mer and  Winter  Journeys  in  Sweden,  Norway,  and  Lapland, 
and  Northern  Finland.  By  PAUL  B.  Du  CHAILLU.  Illus- 
trated. 2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $7  50. 

DU  CHAILLU'S  EQUATORIAL  AFRICA.  Explorations  and 
Adventures  in  Equatorial  Africa:  with  Accounts  of  the  Man- 
ners and  Customs  of  the  People,  and  of  the  Chase  of  the 
Gorilla,  Crocodile,  Leopard,  Elephant,  Hippopotamus,  and  other 
Animals.  By  P.  B.  DC  CHAILLU.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth, 
$5  00;  Sheep,  $5  50;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

DU  CHAILLU'S  ASHANGO  LAND.  A  Journey  to  Ashango 
Land,  and  Further  Penetration  into  Equatorial  Africa.  By  P.  B. 
Du  CHAILLU.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00 ;  Sheep,  $5  50 ; 
Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

DEXTER'S  CONGREGATIONALISM.  The  Congregationalism 
of  the  Last  Three  Hundred  Years,  as  Seen  in  its  Literature : 
with  Special  Reference  to  certain  Recondite,  Neglected,  or  Dis- 
puted Passages.  With  a  Bibliographical  Appendix.  By  H.  M. 
DEXTER.  Large  8vo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

STANLEY'S  THROUGH  THE  DARK  CONTINENT.  Through 
the  Dark  Continent;  or,  The  Sources  of  the  Nile,  Around  the 
Great  Lakes  of  Equatorial  Africa,  and  Down  the  Livingstone 
River  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  149  Illustrations  and  10  Maps. 
By  H.  M.  STANLEY.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  00;  Sheep, 
$12  00;  Half  Morocco,  $15  00. 

BARTLETT'S  FROM  EGYPT  TO  PALESTINE.  From  Egypt 
to  Palestine  :  Through  Sinai,  the  Wilderness,  and  the  South 
Country.  Observations  of  a  Journey  made  with  Special  Refer- 
ence to  the  History  of  the  Israelites.  By  S.  C.  BARTLETT,  D.D., 
LL.D.  With  Maps  and  Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.          5 

FOBSTER'S  LIFE  OF  DEAN  SWIFT.  The  Early  Life  of  Jon- 
athan Swift  (1667-1711).  By  JOHN  FORSTER.  With  Portrait. 
8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $2  50. 

GREEN'S  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  History  of  the  English  People. 
By  JOHN  RICHARD  GREEN,  M.A.  Four  Volumes.  8vo,  Cloth, 
$2  50  per  volume. 

GREEN'S  MAKING  OF  ENGLAND.  The  Making  of  England. 
By  J.  R.  GREEN,  LL.D.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

SHORT'S  NORTH  AMERICANS  OF  ANTIQUITY.  The 
North  Americans  of  Antiquity.  Their  Origin,  Migrations,  and 
Type  of  Civilization  Considered.  By  JOHN  T.  SHORT.  Illus- 
trated. 8vo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

SQUIER'S  PERU.  Peru  :  Incidents  of  Travel  and  Explora- 
tion in  the  Land  of  the  Incas.  By  E.  GEORGE  SQUIER,  M.A., 
F.S.A.,  late  U.  S.  Commissioner  to  Peru.  With  Illustrations. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BENJAMIN'S  CONTEMPORARY  ART.  Contemporary  Art 
in  Europe.  By  S.  G.  W.  BENJAMIN.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth, 
$3  50. 

BENJAMIN'S  ART  IN  AMERICA.  Art  in  America.  By 
S.  G.  W.  BENJAMIN.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

KEBER'S  HISTORY  OF  ANCIENT  ART.  History  of  An- 
cient Art.  By  Dr.  FRANZ  VON  REBER.  Revised  by  the  Au- 
thor. Translated  and  Augmented  by  Joseph  Thacher  Clarke. 
With  310  Illustrations  and  a  Glossary  of  Technical  Terms. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

ADAMS'S  MANUAL  OF  HISTORICAL  LITERATURE.  A 
Manual  of  Historical  Literature.  Comprising  Brief  Descrip- 
tions of  the  Most  Important  Histories  in  English,  French,  and 
German.  By  Professor  C.  K.  ADAMS.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

KINGLAKE'S  CRIMEAN  WAR.  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea : 
its  Origin,  and  an  Account  of  its  Progress  down  to  the  Death 
of  Lord  Raglan.  By  ALEXANDER  WILLIAM  KINGLAKE.  With 
Maps  and  Plans.  Four  Volumes  now  ready.  12mo,  Cloth, 
$2  00  per  vol. 

MAURY'S  PHYSICAL  GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE  SEA.  The 
Physical  Geography  of  the  Sea,  and  its  Meteorology.  By 
M.  F.  MAUBT,  LL.D.  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 


G  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

ENGLISH  MEN  OF  LETTERS.  Edited  by  JOHN  MORLEY. 
The  following  volumes  are  now  ready.  Others  will  follow  : 

JOHNSON.  By  L.. Stephen. — GIBBON.  By  J.  C.  Morison. — 
SCOTT.  By  E.  H.  Button. — SHELLEY.  By  J.  A.  Symonds. — 
GOLDSMITH.  By  W.  Black. — HUME.  By  Professor  Huxley. 
— DEFOE.  By  W.  Minto. — BURNS.  By  Principal  Shairp. — 
SPENSER.  By  B.  W.  Church. — THACKERAY.  By  A.  Trol- 
lope. — BURKE.  By  J.  Morley. — MILTON.  By  M.  Pattison. — 
SOUTHEY.  By  E.  Dowden. — CHAUCER.  By  A.  W.  Ward. — 
BUNYAN.  By  J.  A.  Froude. — COWPER.  By  G.  Smith.  — POPE. 
By  L.Stephen.  —  BYRON.  By  J.Nichols. — LOCKE.  By  T. 
Fowler. — WORDSWORTH.  By  F.  W.  H.  Myers. — HAWTHORNE. 
By  Henry  James,  Jr. — DRYDEN.  By  G.  Saintsbury. — LANDOR. 
By  S.  Colvin. — DE  QUINCEY.  By  D.  Masson. — LAMB.  By  A. 
Ainger. — BENTLEY.  By  R.  C.  Jebb. — DICKENS.  By  A.  W. 
Ward. — GRAY.  By  E.  W.  Gosse. — SWIFT.  By  L.  Stephen. — 
STERNE.  By  H.  D.  Traill. — MACAULAY.  By  J.  C.  Morison. 
FIELDING.  By  Austin  Dobson.  —  SHERIDAN.  By  Mrs.  Oli- 
phant.  12mo,  Cloth,  75  cents  per  volume. 

HALLAM'S  LITERATURE.  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of 
Europe  during  the  Fifteenth,  Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth  Centu- 
ries. By  HENRY  HALL  AM.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00;  Sheep, 

$5  00. 

HALLAM'S  MIDDLE  AGES.  View  of  the  State  of  Europe 
during  the  Middle  Ages.  By  H.  HALLAM.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00  ; 
Sheep,  $2  50. 

HALLAM'S  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 
The  Constitutional  History  of  England,  from  the  Accession  of 
Henry  VII.  to  the  Death  of  George  II.  By  HENRY  HALLAM. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00 ;  Sheep,  $2  50. 

NEWCOMB'S  ASTRONOMY.  Popular  Astronomy.  By  SIMON 
NEWCOMB,  LL.D.  With  One  Hundred  and  Twelve  Engrav- 
ings, and  five  Maps  of  the  Stars.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50 :  School 
Edition,  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  30. 

PRIME'S  POTTERY  AND  PORCELAIN.  Pottery  and  Force- 
lain  of  All  Times  and  Nations.  With  Tables  of  Factory  and 
Artists'  Marks,  for  the  Use  of  Collectors.  By  WILLIAM  C. 
PRIME,  LL.D.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt 
Tops,  $7  00 ;  Half  Calf,  $9  25.  (In  a  Box.) 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.          7 

LIVINGSTONE'S  SOUTH  AFKICA.  Missionary  Travels  and 
Researches  in  South  Africa  :  including  a  Sketch  of  Sixteen 
Years'  Residence  in  the  Interior  of  Africa,  and  a  Journey  from 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Loanda,  on  the  West  Coast ;  thence 
across  the  Continent,  down  the  River  Zambesi,  to  the  Eastern 
Ocean.  By  DAVID  LIVINGSTONE,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  With  Por- 
trait, Maps,  and  Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  50;  Sheep, 
$5  00 ;  Half  Calf,  $6  75. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  ZAMBESI.  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  to 
the  "Zambesi  and  its  Tributaries,  and  of  the  Discovery  of  the 
Lakes  Shirwa  and  Nyassa,  1858-1864.  By  DAVID  and  CHARLES 
LIVINGSTONE.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00 ;  Sheep,  $5  50 ; 
Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  LAST  JOURNALS.  The  Last  Journals  of 
David  Livingstone,  in  Central  Africa,  from  1865  to  his  Death. 
Continued  by  a  Narrative  of  his  Last  Moments  and  Sufferings, 
obtained  from  his  Faithful  Servants  Chuma  and  Susi.  By 
HORACE  WALLER,  F.R.G.S.  With  Portrait,  Maps,  and  Illus- 
trations. 8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00;  Sheep,  $5  50;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 
Cheap  Popular  Edition,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Map  and  Illustrations, 
$2  50. 

BLAIKIE'S  LIFE  OF  DAVID  LIVINGSTONE.  Dr.  Living- 
stone: Memoir  of  his  Personal  Life,  from  his  Unpublished 
Journals  and  Correspondence.  By  W.  G.  BLAIKIE,  D.D., 
LL.D.  With  Portrait  and  Map.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  25. 

NORDIIOFF'S  COMMUNISTIC  SOCIETIES  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES.  The  Communistic  Societies  of  the 
United  States,  from  Personal  Visit  and  Observation ;  includ- 
ing Detailed  Accounts  of  the  Economists,  Zoarites,  Shakers, 
the  Amana,  Oneida,  Bethel,  Aurora,  Icarian,  and  other  exist- 
ing Societies.  With  Particulars  of  their  Religious  Creeds  and 
Practices,  their  Social  Theories  and  Life,  Numbers,  Industries, 
and  Present  Condition.  By  CHARLES  NORDHOFF.  Illustra- 
tions. 8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

NORDHOFF'S  CALIFORNIA.  California :  for  Health,  Pleas- 
ure, and  Residence.  A  Book  for  Travellers  and  Settlers.  New 
Edition,  thoroughly  revised.  By  CHARLKS  NOHDHOFF.  With 
Maps  and  Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

GROTE'S  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  12  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$18  00;  Sheep,  $22  80;  Half  Calf,  $39  00. 


8  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

SHAKSPEARE.  The  Dramatic  Works  of  Sliakspeare.  With. 
Corrections  and  Notes.  Engravings.  6  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$9  00.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00;  Sheep,  $5  00.  In  one 
vol.,  8vo,  Sheep,  $4  00. 

BAKER'S  ISMAILIA.  Ismailia:  a  Narrative  of  the  Expe- 
dition to  Central  Africa  for  the  Suppression  of  the  Slave-trade, 
organized  by  Ismail,  Khedive  of  Egypt.  By  Sir  SAMUEL  WHIT* 
BAKER,  Pasha,  F.R.S.,  F.R.G.S.  With  Maps,  Portraits,  and 
Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

GRIFFIS'S  JAPAN.  The  Mikado's  Empire:  Book  I.  History 
of  Japan,  from  660  B.C.  to  1872  A.D.  Book  II.  Personal  Ex- 
periences, Observations,  and  Studies  in  Japan,  1870-1874.  By 
W.  E.  GRIFFIS.  Copiously  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00; 
Half  Calf,  $6  25. 

SMILES'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  HUGUENOTS.  The  Hugue- 
nots :  their  Settlements,  Churches,  and  Industries  in  England 
and  Ireland.  By  SAMUEL  SMILES.  With  an  Appendix  relating 
to  the  Huguenots  in  America.  Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

SMILES'S  HUGUENOTS  AFTER  THE  REVOCATION.  The 
Huguenots  in  France  after  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes;  with  a  Visit  to  the  Country  of  the  Vaudois.  By  SAM- 
UEL SMILES.  Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

SMILES'S  LIFE  OF  THE  STEPHENSONS.  The  Life  of 
George  Stephenson,  and  of  his  Son,  Robert  Stephenson ;  com- 
prising, also,  a  History  of  the  Invention  and  Introduction  of 
the  Railway  Locomotive.  By  SAMUEL  SMILES.  Illustrated. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

RAWLINSON'S  MANUAL  OF  ANCIENT  HISTORY.  A 
Manual  of  Ancient  History,  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the 
Fall  of  the  Western  Empire.  Comprising  the  History  of  Chal- 
daa,  Assyria,  Media,  Babylonia,  Lydia,  Phoenicia,  Syria,  Ju- 
daea, Egypt,  Carthage,  Persia,  Greece,  Macedonia,  Parthia,  and 
Rome.  By  GEORGE  RAWLINSOK,  M.A.  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  25. 

SCHWEINFURTH'S  HEART  OF  AFRICA.  The  Heart  of 
Africa.  Three  Years'  Travels  and  Adventures  in  the  Unex- 
plored Regions  of  the  Centre  of  Africa— from  1868  to  1871.  By 
Dr.  GEORG  SCHWEINFURTH.  Translated  by  ELLEN  E.  FRBWEK. 
With  an  Introduction  by  W.  WINWOOD  READE.  Illustrated. 
2  Tols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $8  00. 


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